For those still busy hedging on the spread of the coronavirus, a more sustainable threat to energy investments continues with the disappointingly dull impact of the much-lauded ‘Phase One’ trade deal between Washington and Beijing. In a few days’ time, China is set to halve tariffs on $75 billion of imports from the United States, reciprocating a similar move by its western counterpart as part of an interim trade deal. The reductions will come into force on February 14 at 1:01 p.m. local time (05:01 GMT) and will see punitive tariffs for some 1,717 types of US goods lowered from 10% to 5% on some goods and from 5% to 2.5% for others. Unfortunately, U.S. energy producers that are looking forward to a financial windfall by boosting exports to China could be in for a big disappointment. That’s because the pathway for renewed deliveries of key energy commodities such […]