China has completely halted imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US after imposing a 15% tariff on the US fuel, which took effect on February 10. About this informs The New York Times.
According to ship monitoring data, Beijing continues to distance itself from economic interaction with the United States. According to the Chinese customs service, the volume of LNG imports from the USA fell sharply in the period from November to January.
At the same time, China significantly increased its purchases of Russian liquefied gas. Last year, Russia supplied four times more LNG to China than the United States. According to the NYT, at the time of the introduction of the new tariffs, only two ships from the US were bound for China. The new tariffs were Beijing’s response to the first wave of US 10 percent tariffs on Chinese goods initiated by US President Donald Trump.
According to Belgian energy company Kpler, one of those tankers arrived in China before the tariffs were imposed and managed to unload its cargo, while the other changed course and headed for Bangladesh to avoid the new tariffs.
After Europe stopped buying Russian gas in 2022 due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian gas prices fell sharply. At the same time, European companies were forced to pay a much higher price for importing fuel from other sources, including the USA. This allowed China to buy large volumes of cheap Russian gas, avoiding more expensive American LNG.
We remind you that in January 2020, a trade agreement was concluded between the United States and China, according to which Beijing undertook to increase purchases of American gas. However, there was no question of its mandatory consumption within China.
In 2022, these supplies decreased sharply as most US gas began to be diverted to the European market due to higher demand and prices. According to China’s customs administration, in 2024 only 3% of the country’s natural gas imports came from the United States.
