The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu The leading online blog in the fields of corporate governance and financial regulation. Mon, 13 Apr 2026 18:42:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.8 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-photography-4-e1706898544564-1-32x32.png National Security – The Next Frontier of Corporate Activism – The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu 32 32 National Security – The Next Frontier of Corporate Activism https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2025/10/09/national-security-the-next-frontier-of-corporate-activism/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=national-security-the-next-frontier-of-corporate-activism https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2025/10/09/national-security-the-next-frontier-of-corporate-activism/#respond Thu, 09 Oct 2025 11:30:19 +0000 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/?p=176930?d=20251014101018EDT Posted by James Hu, J.T. Ho and Chase D. Kaniecki, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, on Thursday, October 9, 2025
Editor's Note:

James Hu, J.T. Ho, and Chase D. Kaniecki are Partners at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP.

Trump Administration’s National Security Agenda

Against the backdrop of structural imbalances in world trade and increasingly fraying geopolitical relations, the Trump administration is advancing its “economic security as national security” doctrine in 2025 and reordering the global trade system. As a result, geopolitical risks and national security issues have increasingly become a significant topic across boardrooms. Like every other board-level topic, companies should anticipate that their shareholders have viewpoints and some of these viewpoints may be channeled by activist investors.

The Trump administration’s policies and practices—from securing equity stakes in companies deemed vital to U.S. national interest to creating incentives to onshore manufacturing—have projected the federal government’s agenda into private economic affairs. This macro shift and the resulting financial impact on companies could guide activist fund managers toward a new category of campaign platforms, where they integrate national security imperatives (which can be broadly expressed to include supply chain fortifications and decisions on whether or how to operate in certain parts of the world) into their narratives and demands. Despite a 12% drop in overall activist campaigns in the first half of 2025 amid geopolitical headwinds,[1] there is reason to believe that the conditions are ripe for activist campaigns to start incorporating national security themes.

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