U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday China had been an unreliable global partner during the Middle East war by hoarding oil supplies and limiting exports of some goods, mirroring its actions with medical goods during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bessent told reporters he had spoken with Chinese officials about the issue. He declined to answer a question about whether the dispute would derail Donald Trump’s plan to visit Beijing in mid-May, but said Trump and Xi Jinping had a very good working relationship.
“I think the message for the visit is stability. We’ve had great stability in the relationship since last summer; that emanates from the top down,” he said. “I think that communication is the key.”
Hasn’t China been building the works largest strategic reserve for like more than a decade in case the US tried to cut them off from oil?
China’s SPR is the largest in the world, by a lot, but it’s also the world 2nd largest consumer of oil and it imports almost 70% of what it uses.
The US SPR is about 1/3rd the size of China’s but it is also a net exporter with a surplus of around 2.4 Mbbl/s per day.
It’s generally accepted that China has a large enough SPR to cover about 120 days. The US is essentially limitless since, at least on paper, it produces more than it needs.
I viewed some analysis over the weekend proposing that China would run into petroleum problems in mid-June if something doesn’t change with the Iran situation.
They are preparing to stop taking USD, so they need to way to not depend on US energy. Once they have energy independence they will switch to the yuan for global trade.
With all the solar coming online and the rail infra. It can’t be long now.