China slashes US commodities purchases as trade war intensifies

BEIJING – China sharply reduced imports of many US commodities in March – in some cases, to zero – as the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies intensified.

Among the worst affected were purchases of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and wheat, which both fell to nothing in March, according to Chinese Customs data released on April 20.

The US accounted for 17 per cent of China’s wheat imports in 2024, and 5 per cent of its LNG.

China imposed retaliatory duties of 10 per cent to 15 per cent on US energy products in February, and at a similar level on agricultural goods in March. China’s purchases are likely to dwindle even further after the trade war kicked into higher gear in early April, when both sides launched blanket tariffs of more than 100 per cent on each other’s goods.  

Other farm products saw steep declines in March.

American cotton imports plunged 90 per cent from the same month in 2024 to just over 14,000 tonnes. Corn imports fell to less than 800 tonnes, the lowest level since February 2020.

But soya beans bucked the trend, rising 12 per cent to 2.44 million tonnes and building on heavy imports in the first two months of 2025. The world’s top importer of soya beans is usually reliant on US supplies until the South America harvest becomes available in China’s spring.

Elsewhere, purchases of US liquefied petroleum gas, a petrochemical feedstock, slumped 36 per cent to 1.02 million tonnes, while shipments of coal for steelmaking dropped 62 per cent to 208,000 tonnes.

But crude oil imports rose 25 per cent to 542,000 tonnes, in line with a big jump in overall imports, although the US barely breaks the top 10 when it comes to ranking Chinese suppliers. 

While metals were not subject to the new Chinese duties in March, flows of copper were affected by the Trump administration’s pledge to look at imposing tariffs on the metal, which has created a massive premium in US prices. 

That contributed to a slump in Chinese imports of US copper scrap, which more than halved to just over 22,000 tonnes, while cargoes of concentrate dropped 38 per cent to about 19,000 tonnes. BLOOMBERG

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