The Chinese regime said it would impose tariffs on U.S. energy imports and other products. China annually purchases about $8.5 billion worth of U.S. energy products, which it now plans to target.
On Feb. 4, Chinese authorities announced they would enact countermeasures against certain U.S. exports in retaliation for new tariffs enacted on Chinese imports the same day.
In a statement released to the press, China’s State Council Tariff Commission said the U.S. tariffs “violate the rules of the World Trade Organization” (WTO). Chinese state-run media agency Xinhua announced the country filed a formal complaint about the tariff with the WTO on Feb. 4.
“It is not only unhelpful in solving its own problems, but also damages normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the U.S.,” the statement said.
Also, on Feb. 1, the United States said it would raise duties on Canadian and Mexican imports. However, on Feb. 3, the leaders of both nations said they had reached a deal with the United States to pause those actions.
On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump would speak with Chinese leader Xi Jinping “in the next couple of days.”
On Tuesday afternoon, when asked about the tariffs, Trump said “it’s fine.”
“We’re going to do very well against China and against everybody else,” he said. “They’re using our money to build their military and [former President Joe Biden] let that happen.”
Coal
According to an analysis published by the EIA, last updated in November 2023, about 70 percent of Chinese energy production in 2021 was generated by coal-fired power plants. The country is also the world’s top producer of coal, but it still must import the fuel to meet its massive needs.According to the EIA, in 2022, China produced about 4.8 billion short tons of coal but used about 5 billion short tons. (A short ton is one of three measures: short, long, or metric, which are different units of mass.)
In that same year, Indonesia accounted for 89 percent of Chinese coal imports. Historically, the EIA analysis said that Australia is a major coal supplier to China, but trade was limited due to political issues in 2022. In 2023, Australia resumed shipping more than 5 million short tons of coal per month to China.
By comparison, according to the EIA’s most recent figures, the United States shipped about 5 million short tons of coal to China in 2023. Nevertheless, that figure nearly doubled to about 8.7 million short tons in the first nine months of 2024.
By the end of September 2024, the United States exported about 79.9 million short tons of coal. In that period, Chinese consumption accounted for about 10.9 percent of overall U.S. exports. India, not China, was the largest export destination for U.S. coal. India received more than 19.5 million short tons of U.S. coal in the first nine months of 2024.
LNG
As for LNG, the EIA analysis said Australia was the chief source of LNG for China in 2022. LNG accounted for 59 percent of the country’s overall natural gas imports in 2022, with the remaining 41 percent being piped in from Turkmenistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, and Uzbekistan.Overall, in 2022, China imported 3 trillion cubic feet of LNG, according to the EIA.
Reuters, citing an unidentified source, said on Tuesday that more than 5 percent of China’s LNG imports come from the United States.
In 2023, the U.S. exported 173.2 billion cubic feet of LNG to China, according to the EIA, at an average price of $8.42 per thousand cubic feet. At that price, China imported about $1.5 billion worth of LNG from the United States in 2023.
By comparison, the United States exported 4.3 trillion cubic feet of LNG in 2023, according to the EIA. The Netherlands and France following closely were the largest importers of LNG that year, with 588.6 billion cubic feet and 492.9 billion cubic feet of LNG, respectively, purchased from the United States. In 2023, China received about 4 percent of the LNG the United States exported.
Crude oil
According to the EIA, in 2022, China imported most of its crude oil and condensate from Middle Eastern sources or Russia. Saudi Arabia and Russia, the largest individual sources of crude oil to China, both accounted for 18 percent of its crude oil imports.The United States, by comparison, only accounted for 2 percent of China’s crude oil imports in 2022. Reuters, citing an unidentified source, said on Tuesday that the total dropped to 1.7 percent in 2024, or about $6 billion worth of oil.
In 2023, the United States exported 167.4 million barrels of crude oil to China. However, The Netherlands was the largest importer of U.S. oil. That year, according to the EIA, it imported about 227.7 million barrels of crude oil.
Automotive
In a social media post, Lei Xing, a longtime observer of the Chinese automotive market, said that the Chinese tariff will predominantly target passenger vehicles, pick-up trucks, and trailers for agricultural use.Xing, a consultant and co-host of the “China EVs & More” podcast, cited data from a Chinese automotive association that China imported about 110,000 vehicles from the United States.
Xing predicted that the tariff would affect the so-called Big Three automakers—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis—but would not significantly impact their business.
“In the grand scheme of things, the well-being of American automakers and all foreign automakers, for that matter, in China will not hinge on the tariffs and imports,” Xing said on social media. “The 10 percent tariffs for now is more of a slap on the wrist.”
