China halts its purchase of U.S. liquified natural gas

China has stopped buying liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States, halting cargoes for more than ten weeks and widening the effects of the Sino‑American trade conflict to energy supplies.

Since a 69,000‑tonne tanker from Corpus Christi, Texas, reached the south‑eastern province of Fujian on 6 February, no other U.S. LNG vessel has docked in China. 

A second ship bound for the mainland changed course to Bangladesh after failing to arrive before Beijing’s 15% tariff on American LNG took effect on 10 February. That duty has since risen to 49%, making the fuel uneconomical for Chinese buyers for the foreseeable future.

The halt repeats a year‑long block on U.S. LNG during Donald Trump’s first term. Analysts say the latest stand‑off could have wider consequences, drawing China closer to Russian supplies and clouding the prospects of the multibillion‑dollar export terminals now being built in the United States and Mexico.

“There will be long‑term consequences,” said Anne‑Sophie Corbeau, a natural‑gas specialist at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “I do not think Chinese LNG importers will ever contract any new U.S. LNG.”

China already takes only a small share of its LNG from the United States. After Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Chinese firms found it more profitable to resell U.S. cargoes to Europe. Last year, just 6% of China’s LNG imports came from American plants, down from 11% in 2021.

Even so, Chinese groups, including PetroChina and Sinopec, hold 13 long‑term contracts for U.S. LNG running as far as 2049. Those off‑take agreements were crucial to financing new Gulf Coast projects, but developers have recently tried to renegotiate terms to reflect higher inflation and the burden of Chinese tariffs.

Beijing is meanwhile turning to Moscow 

In the short term, few expect trade to resume. “The last time this happened, there was a complete hiatus until the Chinese authorities granted waivers to companies, but that was at a time when gas demand was booming,” said Gillian Boccara, an analyst at Kpler. “Now we are looking at lower economic growth, and we think the Chinese can withstand the loss of these cargoes for quite a long time.”

China’s ambassador to Russia, Zhang Hanhui, said this week that Chinese buyers were eager to raise purchases of Russian LNG. “So many buyers are asking the embassy to help establish contacts with Russian suppliers, I think there will definitely be more [imports],” Zhang told reporters.

Russia is already China’s third‑largest LNG supplier, behind Australia and Qatar, and the two governments are negotiating a second cross‑border gas pipeline, Power of Siberia 2.

“With tariffs rising to the level where they are an effective embargo, we will see a reshuffling of trade flows,” said Richard Bronze of consultancy Energy Aspects. 

“We also expect Asia demand to fall by five to ten million tonnes as a whole. That should bring gas prices down a bit in Europe.”

For now, the empty arrival logs at Chinese ports underline the practical impact of tariffs that turned U.S. LNG from a growth trade into a stranded cargo, while giving Russia another opening in Asia’s largest gas market.

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