After US President Donald Trump’s announcement on Thursday that he was slapping US$60 billion in tariffs on China, a top administration official is giving China some advice on how to respond.
The “simplest” solution, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Bloomberg, is to buy more liquefied natural gas from the US.
“China needs to import very, very large amounts of LNG and from their point it would be very logical to import more of it from us, if for no reason other than to diversify their sources of supply,” Ross said. “It would also have the side effect of reducing the deficit.”
China is currently the third-largest importer of America’s LNG, behind Mexico and South Korea. Cheniere Energy became the first US gas exporter to sign on to a long-term deal with a Chinese firm in February, agreeing to supply China National Petroleum Corporation with 1.2 million metric tons a year through 2043.
Hope that China won’t buy any more from US. Only China can stop US in economic agreession.
Why do the Americans think they are spending beyond their means and aren’t competitive to boot? It’s the financialisation of their economy and the reserve currency status of the dollar. Maybe the the launch of the petro-yuan this month will fix that and the US can return to being an honest-to-goodness country that earns its bacon, spend within its means and refrain from trying to control the affairs of the entire world,
get rid American companies manufacturing in China and exporting back to US and elsewhere . it brings little actual benefit to China and aggravates trade surplus numbers.
To reduce the deficit,China would need to buy more from US. Would they sell? Reliable? There is only so much agriculture products or number of plants China needs. Perhaps advance fighter jets or high end technologies at negotiated prices?
The facts are that US LNG is more expensive and the supply is too small to meet China’s needs. Morever US does not allow China to have reasonable stakes in US energy companies while China has invested heavily into Russian LNG projects.
The side effect of US tariffs is that there is less reason for China to finance US treasury bonds. US will resort to more printing its fiat currency and more nations will abandon the U$.
US really face structural issues with its economy and spend too much on its military. NK has thrown US alifeline in proposing peace. It remains to see whether US will allow its greedy neocons to shoot US in its foot again. US needs peace, not war and cooperation with China to restructure its uncompetitive economy.