President Donald Trump’s first year in office must have been a pleasant surprise for Chinese President Xi Jinping. A successful state visit in Beijing and an apparent personal chemistry between the two leaders suggested a close relationship between the countries was brewing. But President Trump’s second year has turned that narrative on its head. The trade war between the two largest economies in the world has been intensifying of late, with both countries implementing a second round of tariffs on $16 billion worth of goods. It has been one of Trump’s main goals to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China. The shale revolution in the U.S. has shrunk the deficit slightly, with China requiring ever-larger volumes of oil and gas to power its economy. In an attempt to avert a trade war, Beijing proposed to buy nearly $70 billion of American products of which LNG was an important […]