Trump's hammer strikes relentlessly, but there is little strength in his hand

Alexander Titov, senior expert at the Energy Department, commented to Monocle on the increase in tariffs in China on energy imports from the United States.

For coal, as Alexander Titov explains, tariffs do not look critical for the US coal industry.

"I don't expect a strong change in flows in the coal market," he told Monocle. — First of all, duties are not an embargo. The Chinese market remains open to the United States. For example, in January last year, China imposed import duties on Russian coal, but China has remained our main market. The volume of coal trade between the United States and China doubled in 2024, to 12.1 million tons, and returned to the level of 2021 (then it was 11.3 million tons), but this is not a very large volume, given that the total coal exports from the United States are 98 million tons, and the total imports to China - 543 million tons."

The basis of trade is metallurgical coal, and the shares are higher here, Alexander Titov continues. According to him, China is the second buyer of metallurgical coal from the United States, its share in exports is 17%. For China, the share of the United States is less critical — only 7%.

"If the United States reduces supplies to China, some of the coal will go to India, Japan and South Korea. And China will replace volumes from the United States with growing supplies of Mongolian coal and may increase purchases from Australia and Russia," the expert says.