The EU's temporary steel safeguard expired at end-June 2026 and a permanent TRQ took its place — duty-free volume nearly halved to about 18.35 Mt, the out-of-quota duty doubled to 50%, and a first-ever "melt and pour" origin rule. Using the official allocations, this piece breaks the quota down category by category and country by country: HRC alone claims about 5.2 million tonnes, Türkiye takes the largest share, Taiwan, China is squeezed hardest — and CBAM stacks a second barrier on top.

On July 31, 2026, the European Commission published Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1740, correcting a number of default values, production-route indicators and product-code entries under the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). The corrections apply retroactively from January 1, 2026, meaning affected importers may need to revisit calculations already made for 2026 transactions. For the aluminium sector, the latest correction does not materially change the main country-specific default values for CN 7601 unwrought aluminium. The more significant numerical revisions are instead concentrated in selected downstream aluminium products and precursor values, particularly under CN 7616. For Tunisia, several aluminium entries were corrected following erroneous CN-code assignments in the original regulation. Under the corrected tables, the country-specific base default values for CN 7616 10 00, CN 7616 91 00 and CN 7616 99 90 are 1.440 tCO₂e/t, while CN 7616 99 10 is set at 0.760 tCO₂e/t. These corrected values are substantially lower than the fallback values that would otherwise have applied where no valid Tunisia-specific entry was available. At the same time, the Commission raised two default values used for aluminium precursors where the country of production cannot be determined. The value for CN 7616 99 10 was corrected from 3.080 tCO₂e/t to 4.542 tCO₂e/t, while CN 7616 99 90 increased from 3.770 tCO₂e/t to 5.559 tCO₂e/t. Both revisions represent increases of approximately 47.5%. This means the July correction has different effects depending on the product and the availability of origin information. For certain Tunisian downstream aluminium products, the corrected country-specific values reduce the applicable default emissions intensity. By contrast, where the origin of relevant aluminium precursors cannot be established, the corrected Annex IV values result in a noticeably higher default emissions assumption. The Commission has characterised the latest changes as corrections to transcription mistakes, CN-code mapping issues, missing or inaccurate production-route information and related technical errors, rather than a broader adjustment to the CBAM methodology itself. The underlying framework for applying default values remains unchanged. The annual mark-ups applied to CBAM default values also remain unchanged. Under the current framework, the applicable mark-up is 10% in 2026, 20% in 2027 and 30% from 2028 onward. The correction therefore mainly affects the underlying base values and technical classification of selected entries rather than the broader escalation mechanism. Overall, the July update leaves the main primary aluminium default-value structure largely intact, while revising the treatment of selected fabricated aluminium products and unknown-origin precursors. For companies relying on default values, especially where precursor origin cannot be fully determined, the revised tables may alter the estimated embedded emissions and corresponding CBAM certificate exposure for affected 2026 imports. Given that Regulation (EU) 2026/1740 applies from January 1, 2026, importers and exporters involved in the affected product categories may need to review earlier calculations and ensure that their CBAM reporting uses the corrected values.

In 2026 the EU's CBAM crossed from "report-only" into a phase where importers pay real money. This piece lays out the five newly-landed implementing regulations, the timetable and thresholds, and — using hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil, coated sheet and other flagship traded steels as its sample — draws a cost map from the official country default values. For the same coil of HRC, Indonesia's carbon cost is about 581 EUR/tonne while the USA's is about 15 EUR/tonne: a near-40× gap.

El Salvador has begun implementing its new regulatory framework for renewable energy self-consumption. The General Directorate of Energy, Hydrocarbons, and Mines has launched official procedures for authorizing providers and installing renewable self-consumption systems, initially applying to solar PV systems. The framework implements the Law for the Promotion of Renewable Energy Use, approved in October 2025, together with special regulations published in April 2026. It covers requirements for the import, sale, design, installation, approval, grid connection, operation, maintenance and supervision of renewable self-consumption systems. The rules allow users to inject surplus electricity into the distribution grid and receive compensation, while also extending incentives to storage systems linked to renewable generation. Tax benefits related to income tax, VAT and import tariffs will be available for 10 years.

Recently, Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corporation disclosed that it is planning to construct a new, modern electric vehicle battery assembly facility. The total investment scale for the project reaches 7 billion Philippine pesos, all of which will be incorporated into the Philippines' new Electric Vehicle Incentive Strategy (EVIS) support framework. The chairman of Mitsubishi Motors Philippines clearly stated that this planned project focuses on the localized assembly of batteries for hybrid models, with no plans to include battery research and development at this stage. The primary bottleneck currently hindering project progress is the pending official release of the detailed implementing rules for the EVIS policy. At the technology and industry chain planning level, Mitsubishi aims to position this Philippines battery factory as a benchmark production line in Southeast Asia, with technical standards aligned with its existing production bases in Thailand and Indonesia, and overall competitiveness benchmarked against its domestic factories in Japan. At the same time, the company will progressively advance localization support and has already initiated cooperation discussions with several local Philippine automotive parts companies to build a local supply chain system.

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto announced on August 14, in his address to parliament on the 2027 draft state budget, that Indonesia will launch a Strategic Minerals and Commodities Exchange (Bursa Mineral dan Komoditas Strategis) on January 1, 2027, under the supervision of financial regulator OJK. He framed it as the next stage of the single-window export policy, arguing prices for Indonesian palm oil, nickel, tin, coal and gold have long been set on overseas exchanges using benchmarks Indonesia did not create. The stated aim is to build an Indonesia Reference Price for major export commodities and a deeper, more transparent market with less room for manipulation. He asked parliament to pass the enabling rules quickly. SMM notes implementing rules and scope are not yet defined.