In February 2025, following the announcement of broad tariffs by the United States on Chinese goods, China imposed retaliatory measures on selected U.S. energy products, including a 15% tariff on liquefied natural gas (LNG) and a 10% tariff on crude oil. As a result, imports of these two fuels from the United States came to an almost complete halt. From a resource endowment perspective, the United States — as the world's largest LNG exporter and a major oil producer — and China — as the world's largest energy buyer — have a natural energy complementarity. However, the recent escalation of the Middle East crisis is reshaping the global energy landscape. The disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has affected approximately one-fifth of global oil and seaborne natural gas exports, driving up international energy prices.
In the LNG sector, China has been forced to significantly reduce imports due to supply disruptions from major sources such as Qatar, which has created an opportunity for U.S. LNG to fill part of the gap. For the United States, lifting trade restrictions would also be strategically valuable, as U.S. LNG developers are actively seeking long-term buyers to support their export projects. With its stable and predictable demand growth, China is seen as a key market for long-term energy export projects, offering the scale necessary to underpin U.S. infrastructure investments. LNG is likely to be one of the sectors where China significantly increases purchases as a result of high-level bilateral engagement. According to available data, Chinese companies have already signed contracts for approximately 28 million tonnes per year of U.S. LNG, with deliveries expected to accelerate toward the end of this decade. However, since trade frictions escalated in 2025, Chinese buyers have not entered into new long-term agreements with U.S. LNG facilities.
From an energy structure perspective, China's rapid growth in renewable energy capacity requires reliable backup power to manage intermittency, a role still partially dependent on natural gas. Therefore, moderately increasing U.S. LNG imports carries practical justification. However, whether China is willing to lift tariffs depends on what it can obtain in return, and the potential concessions the United States is prepared to offer remain unclear. This makes the prospect of any agreement highly uncertain. It is worth noting that no major U.S. energy executives are planning to travel with the delegation. At the same time, Chinese buyers have spent the past several years diversifying their energy import sources to reduce political risk associated with any single market — a strategy shaped directly by the lessons learned from the previous round of trade frictions.
