Major global carmakers are now openly asking Washington to keep Chinese auto and battery companies physically out of the U.S. market, arguing that their own long-term survival is on the line.

In a submission to a U.S. House hearing on Chinese vehicles, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Stellantis and most other major manufacturers, urged both Congress and the Trump administration to block Chinese state-backed firms from building factories in the United States.

China is putting a formal gatekeeper in front of its steel exports, and that is less about paperwork in 2026 than about giving Beijing a strategic lever over a sector that has become both an economic shock absorber at home and a political lightning rod abroad.

From 1 January 2026, exporters of around 300 categories of steel products will have to obtain export licences tied to specific contracts and backed by manufacturers’ quality inspection certificates, the Ministry of Commerce has announced. The measure plugs steel into a broader export-licensing regime that already covers 43 sensitive goods, including wheat, corn, coal and crude oil, and signals that steel is now being treated alongside energy and food as a commodity of strategic concern.

The European Union is quietly defusing one of the more explosive flashpoints in transatlantic energy policy: how to apply its tough new methane rules to imported oil and gas without choking off supplies from the United States.

From this year, the EU’s methane regulation obliges importers of oil and gas to monitor and report the methane emissions associated with what they bring into Europe. Over time, that escalates: from 2027, new gas supply contracts will have to comply with standards equivalent to the EU’s own methane rules, or they will not be acceptable.