Trump Says China to Purchase More US Energy, Touts Alaska Deal
US President Donald Trump said China would purchase more US energy as part of a wider trade truce, and hinted at an unspecified “very large scale” transaction involving Alaskan oil and gas.
Writing on Truth Social after talks with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Thursday, Trump said officials from both nations’ energy teams, including US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, would be meeting to work out the specifics of a deal. He provided no further detail.
The US is the largest oil and gas producer in the world and China is the biggest importer of both products, but the fuel trade between the two powers completely evaporated this year amid rising tensions.
China last imported US crude oil in May and liquefied natural gas in February, according to Customs data. China imposed retaliatory duties of 10% to 15% on US energy products in February. The hiatus harkens back to the first trade war, when China halted purchases of US hydrocarbons for months on end.
That spat ended with a trade deal in January 2020 in which China promised to buy more than $50 billion of US energy over two years. A global pandemic and widespread supply disruption, however, meant that actual purchases came in at only about one-third of the amount pledged.
While Trump did not provide details on the forthcoming Alaska deal, his comments suggest Washington will seek to court China as a customer for a long-stalled LNG project in Alaska that has been championed by the president.
The $44 billion Alaska plan has struggled for decades to secure the binding long-term contracts and investments needed for its development. Countries eager to curry favor with Trump, however, have been quick to spot an opportunity. Buyers in Japan and Taiwan have signed preliminary pacts with the project.
In 2017, during a Trump visit to Beijing, several Chinese entities, including state-owned oil giant Sinopec, signed a joint development agreement with the state of Alaska for a gas export project. Nothing was ever developed.
Source: Bloomberg.com
