Tag: United States

Promised ‘Golden Age’ for Oil and Gas Jeopardized by Trump’s Trade War

China dumps the US and bets on Russia

By GLOBAL AFFAIRS via The Liberty Beacon

Since March 2025, there has been a complete halt in the importation of US crude oil and American liquefied natural gas (LNG) into China, signifying a significant downturn in the energy trade between the two nations amidst an intensifying tariff conflict, as reported by energy traders in China.

This decline commenced merely two months prior, coinciding with the reinstatement of the Trump administration and the resurgence of a stringent trade policy. China represents a significant and expanding market for liquefied natural gas exports, especially from Texas. According to census data, energy exports constitute 39% of Texas’s total exports to China.

(Source: REUTERS/SCANPIX)

Long-Term Consequences for LNG Shipping and Challenges Ahead:

1. Decreased Tonne-Mile Demand: As China increases its LNG imports from neighboring countries, such as Russia, the reduction in long-haul voyages between the US and China will lead to a decline in overall tonne-mile production.

2. Insufficient Offsets from Other Regions: Increases in LNG shipments from Canada or Africa will not adequately compensate for the tonne-miles lost due to the diminished flow of LNG between the US and China.

3. Limited US-Asia Trade Growth: The lack of robust LNG trade between the US and China will hinder the expansion of US-Asia shipping, especially if demand in Europe begins to stabilise.

4. Increased Russian Pipeline Gas Supply: The development of initiatives like Power of Siberia 2 may further diminish the demand for LNG, thereby lowering the need for shipping services.

U.S.-China trade tensions have resurfaced, significantly impacting the global LNG market. The US has reinstated major tariffs, leading China to impose a 15% retaliatory tariff on US liquefied natural gas (LNG). Consequently, China has halted imports of US LNG, redirecting shipments to Europe and disrupting established trade routes. This shift is further supported by a 24% year-over-year drop in China’s LNG imports for the first quarter of 2025 and strong gas deliveries from Russia via the Power of Siberia pipeline…

IMAGE: The Yamal LNG liquefied natural gas plant in the seaport of Sabbeta on the western shore of the Ob Bay of the Kara Sea (Source: NS Energy)

Natalia Dembinskaya reports for RIA Novosti…

Step on the gas: China dumps the US and bets on Russia

“China may completely abandon American LNG” – Pavel Maryshev, economist

Amid the trade war, Beijing has suspended purchases of American liquefied natural gas. Analysts do not rule out that this will be the case for a long time. China plans to purchase even more LNG from Russia. What volumes are they counting on, and why Moscow will meet them halfway…

Stopped import

Last year, China received 8.3 million tons of LNG from Russia. This is the third figure after Australia (26.19) and Qatar (18.34). In fourth place is Malaysia – 7.69.

There were also American imports (4.2 million tons), but due to Trump’s unprecedented trade tariffs, Beijing stopped this.

Tariffs are the hot topic.  President Trump is using tariffs in a strategy that encompasses the whole of government.  Is the world ready?  More precisely, is China prepared to go toe-to-toe?

Although the president has scaled back on the tariffs — e.g., a 90-day pause, exemptions on smartphones — he has not relented on China.  His “Liberation Day” announcement launched the U.S. version of the whole-of-government approach — first and foremost to revitalize America’s standing in the world, but it was also to target and perhaps to isolate China economically.

There are ample reasons for President Trump to zero in first and squarely on China.  Since the rise of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China has aimed to topple America by means above and beyond the traditional military path.  In 2021, we discussed the whole-of-government approach China has taken against the U.S. for the past three decades.  Brigadier General (ret.) Robert Spalding’s Stealth War accurately documented China’s economic and diplomatic machinations that followed a book on Irregular Warfare, written by two Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) colonels.

America has lacked the willpower to coordinate a broader, integrated plan.  The U.S. default, hearkening back to the Teddy Roosevelt days, was to build up our military and carry that big stick.

For the first time in the post–World War II era, the U.S. is in a full, concerted effort against China — more on the economic side than via the kinetic means (combat warfare).

Tip of the Spear Aimed at China

The tip of the spear of this economic warfare is the imposition of tariffs, which now is a tit-for-tat yo-yo between the U.S. and China.  But a tit-for-tat can go for only so long before there is a breaking point.  It will initiate a war of attrition.  The U.S., the largest and the most powerful economy in the world and backed by the most potent military and diplomatic arms, will most likely outlast China, though with aches and pains that will mostly be borne by the average taxpayer.

For China, the numbers do not and cannot lie.  The Chinese are at a disadvantage: In 2023, according to Trading Economics, the U.S. is the largest market for Made in China goods, valued at $501 billion, or 15% of the total Chinese export market.  Take away the $275 billion that China “exports” to Hong Kong (or 8% of China’s export market), and the next biggest markets that China exports to are Japan and Korea at $157 billion and $148 billon, respectively.

Therefore, how can China alleviate, relieve, mitigate or even end this economic warfare before its entire economy and manufacturing foundation go into convulsions, as fewer and fewer of its products are being exported and sold due to the higher tariffs imposed on them?

Like in shooting warfare, a diversion is one of China’s options.  In addition to its now “regular” air incursion of Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), will China escalate its naval exercises in the Taiwan Strait and northward and southward toward the Senkaku Islands and the Luzon Strait, respectively?  Will this antagonize Japan and the Philippines and lured them into military action?

Another option, short of a full-scale invasion of Taiwan, is the military occupation of Chinese coastal islands of Kinmen (AKA Quemoy) and Matsu, long occupied by Taiwan since the end of WWII.

If there is an invasion of Kinmen and Matsu, one advantage Xi Jinping will gain is time.  Time is bought by Xi to semi-appease the hard-line CCP faction that has long wanted to “reunite” Taiwan with the “motherland” at the earliest.  Xi will state that China has shown that it can act decisively and conduct successful combat operations for the first time since the country’s 1970s fiasco against Vietnam.  He will also proclaim that this is the preview of the eventual takeover of Taiwan after he conducts “after action” reviews of the conquest of Kinmen and Matsu.  It will also confirm China’s refusal to never renounce the use of force against Taiwan and the 23 million Taiwanese.  More importantly, this option may be seen in the West — especially in the United States — that China may be serious in its objective to take over Taiwan.

For Taiwan, Kinmen and Matsu (and their combined 150,000 residents), while ruled from Taipei, have long lost its strategic importance.  No longer are the days when Chiang Kai-shek wanted to use these islands as staging areas and stepping stones to “reconquer the mainland” after he and his 1+ million Kuomintang forces fled China and established the nationalist Republic of China government on a Taiwan that had previously been a colony of Japan since 1895.

The unknowns will be how the U.S. will react to the military takeover of Taiwan’s islands.  Will the U.S.

1) reduce tariffs against China?

2) negotiate for a downward revision of its tariffs against China?

3) execute plans to defend Taiwan (and the most strategically important chip manufacturing plants in northeast Taiwan)?

Implement Tariffs to Influence World Prices and Revitalize American Manufacturing

The United States is the world’s largest economy and buyer of products.  If and when we buy less in widgets, the makers of those widgets, and the world, will notice.  Our demand for steel, chips, solar panels, and gadgets and widgets are second to none.  And if that demand decreases due to tariffs, basic Econ 101 dictates that supply may very well exceed demand, leading to price decreases.  Economists have called this phenomenon “terms-of-trade gain.”

This shift in demand (using U.S. and China as examples) between countries will be dependent of the supply country (China)’s ability to offload the now excess goods due to the tariffs imposed by the U.S.  If no nations can make up for the loss of Made in China goods due to Trump’s tariffs, would not the supply exceed demand and, ergo, lead to a drop in prices, where now the U.S. may be able to snatch them up at a cheaper price?

Use Tariffs as a Proxy to an Economic War with China

Trump’s imposition of tariffs is a clear sign of the U.S. engaging in an economic war against China.  The whole of government approach, initiated by increased tariffs and backed by the world’s most formidable military and diplomatic force, will reinvigorate the American economy and its manufacturing base.  No longer are the days when American just “talk softly and carry a big stick.”

Will this isolate and put a stranglehold on China?  Possibly. 

How China reacts and reciprocates, militarily or economically, will tell the world if they have the resources to combat this threat to their economy.

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Featured Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr (cropped).

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USAID has operated in Portugal since 1975, even before democratic elections were held. Chega pointed to the agency’s exorbitant budget, for decades spent with very little oversight. The party further underlined that the organisation has been exposed for extremely biased priorities in its funding, which Chega classified as “ideological crusading.”

The recommendation mentions a number of scandals connected to the agency and stresses its role in funding projects aimed at censoring conservatives all over the world under the guise of “fighting disinformation,” including outright paying journalists.

It is an established fact—exposed by then-Senator, now U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio—that LGBT and drag queen festivals in Portugal were subsidised by USAID. These festivals included screening movies featuring homosexual acts with minors, for instance.

Chega’s recommendation, submitted in March, calls for all USAID funding to be accounted for, in governmental, academic, media, and NGO activities in Portugal. This would have some consequences in Portugal yet, if part of a Europe-wide effort, such requests may contribute to exposing and diminishing left-wing and Democratic Party influence over the Old Continent. Who can forget, for one, the Samantha Power-led USAID’s efforts, at interfering in Hungary’s electoral process?

While Portugal’s NGO sector is fairly weak compared to regions such as Central and Eastern Europe, the influence of foreign progressive internationalism has also been felt in the Iberian republic. George Soros is an inevitable presence, considering the vast amounts of money the multi-billionaire activist has poured into the transnational network of political influencing.

For instance, Soros funds the Poynter Institute, which certifies ‘official fact-checkers.’ Poynter has certified Polígrafo, an entity quoted as an authority on ‘truth’ by some of Portugal’s biggest media outlets, such as the SIC TV franchise and the newspaper Expresso. Polígrafo does not even conceal its mission as denouncing—exclusively—lies uttered by politicians. If ‘disinformation’ is propagated by the people paid to tell the truth—journalists—Polígrafo has nothing to say. Additionally, Polígrafo is also financed by Meta, one of the biggest purveyors of online political censorship.

Both SIC and Expresso are owned by one of the founders of PSD (Partido Social Democrata) and are regarded as the voice of the centre-right in Portugal. For the Lisbon-based media and PSD, being ‘centre-right’ means extolling the virtues of Barack Obama and employing pundits such as Carmo Afonso, who petitioned the Constitutional Court for the banning of Chega. In Expresso, Carmo Afonso also praised the Black Lives Matter race riots and expressed admiration for BLM’s successful extortion of multinationals such as Mark Jacobs through vandalism.

More directly, George Soros also funds the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which released the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Pandora Papers, and others. In Portugal, the Consortium’s contact is an Expresso journalist…

Soros’s Open Society Foundations have also been reported as funding the UK-based organisation Hope Not Hate (HNH). HNH claims to fight extremism but admits that it only looks at ‘right-wing extremism.’ In fact, HNH’s ties to leftist violence are such that a report by the Swedish Institute for Defence Studies—a think-tank of the Swedish military—identified HNH as part of an international network of activist entities dedicated to the harassment, intimidation, and incitement against political-ideological foes in the ‘Extremist and Violent Propaganda’ chapter of said report. In Expresso, Hope Not Hate is mentioned as a credible source of journalism.

Even if the Chega proposal is heeded, uncovering where all the USAID money went would still only be showing the tip of the iceberg—or one of the tentacles of the octopus—of all the foreign money currently promoting extremism in Portugal and subverting Portuguese sovereignty.

One can only hope that the Trump administration’s actions will throw more light on the contamination of the West by transnational radical lobbies.

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