2026 FDI and National Security Review: The Evolving Global Landscape

The global national security and foreign direct investment (FDI) review landscape continues to evolve. Investment screening has become a common feature of cross-border regulation, particularly among advanced economies, and many jurisdictions have introduced, expanded or refined mechanisms to assess foreign investment on national security, public order or economic security grounds. At the same time, regimes implemented in recent years are maturing, the United States and its allies are coordinating more closely on investment security strategy, and certain affected jurisdictions are developing countermeasures.

Trends to Watch

• Economic security and national security will become increasingly inseparable.
  Governments are treating access to capital, technology, infrastructure, data, supply chains, and industrial capacity as matters of national security. Investment screening will therefore operate alongside trade controls, industrial policy, procurement, and other economic-security tools, requiring investors to assess transactions within a broader policy context.
• Capital will be increasingly differentiated.
  Regulators are looking beyond the immediate investor to ownership, governance, transparency, strategic relationships, and track record. Understanding how those factors will be perceived, and addressing them before engagement with regulators, can materially improve access, timing, and transaction certainty.
• National security considerations will shape deal strategy from the outset.
  Regulatory risk increasingly turns on the interaction among the investor, the target, the technology or assets involved, and the proposed governance rights. Early analysis can inform structure, diligence, contractual protections, and stakeholder engagement, preserving options that may be unavailable later in the process.
• Controls will increasingly follow strategic capabilities in both directions.
  Governments are no longer focused solely on who may acquire sensitive assets. Outbound investment controls and related restrictions increasingly address whether capital, technology, expertise, and other strategic capabilities may move abroad, requiring investors to navigate overlapping inbound and outbound regimes.
• The national security perimeter will continue to expand.
  AI will attract significant attention, but it forms part of a wider focus on advanced computing, semiconductors, biotechnology, data, communications, energy, critical infrastructure, and other strategic sectors. Regulatory treatment will often depend on technical facts, investor rights, end uses, and transaction structure.
• A more fragmented landscape will increase the value of informed execution.
  Governments are seeking to facilitate investment they regard as lower risk while applying greater scrutiny elsewhere. The resulting regimes will be more differentiated, but not necessarily less navigable: investors that understand regulatory priorities and anticipate points of friction will be better positioned to execute with confidence.