Chinese officials ordered ships full of North Korean coal to return home the day after the Trump administration ordered missile strikes against a Syrian airfield in response to chemical weapons attacks.
President Donald Trump ordered U.S. warships launch 59 missiles against the Syrian base Thursday night, April 6, and three Chinese sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters that customs officials rebuffed North Korean coal ships on Friday, April 7.
Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday as well. The order to block North Korean coal was issued soon after Trump’s meeting with Xi concluded.
A dozen North Korean cargo ships loaded with coal were ordered to turn around, according to Reuters.
Dandong Chengtai Trade Co., the largest importer of North Korean coal, said 600,000 tons of coal sat idle in ports and a further 2 million tons of coal is sitting Chinese ports waiting to go back to Korea, according to Reuters.
China’s substituted its Korean coking coal with U.S.-produced coal. It’s a small boon for an industry Trump said he’d fight to help during his 2016 campaign run. China imported more than 400,000 tons of U.S. coal in February.
China officially banned North Korean coal imports in February, but U.S. officials continued to put pressure on China to fully honored its ban. (RELATED: China Turns Away North Korean Trade After Trump Pressures Beijing)
China is North Korea’s most important trading partner. North Korea is an important supplier of coal for China’s massive steel industry.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley recently said China was still getting North Korean coal “through other ways” and asked the country to “take this as seriously as the rest of the world does.”
The Trump administration sent a U.S. Navy strike group to the region, showing their resolve to take action if North Korea gets too out of hand.
Reuters reported that “China and South Korea agreed on Monday to slap tougher sanctions on North Korea if it carries out nuclear or long-range missile tests, a senior official in Seoul said.”
Trump launched missile strikes against a Syrian airfield after the Assad regime dropped chemical weapons on civilians in the northwestern part of the country.
Assad might have lived out his life in a French villa but now the war crime criminal will be in a 10×10 prison cell being serviced by inmates . What happened to the Susan Rice
declaration about no chemical weapons in Syria ?
Should have been wiretapping Syria instead of political opponents for Democrat operatives . How many private American citizens were spied on for Democrat dirt gathers since 2015 ? We are about to find out .
China has been allowing Chunky in N Korea to fire off firecrackers at will and doesn’t seem the least bit concerned while pan handling the USA for $billions in “save the planet’ climate (graft ) cash . Not going to happen and Chunky put your fireworks away before 50 tomahawks land in your fruit loops bowl .
You sound like you’re getting your news from your television set. Assad did not use chemical weapons. The supposed “rebels” aka Jehadists, however, have done so. A conventional bomb was dropped on a rebel supply depot containing chemicals, which the wind then carried to a nearby village. It was NOT a chemical attack by Assad. It was used as a ridiculous excuse to illegally bomb a Syrian air base. Trump is the war criminal here.
Dave, sounds like you get your news from Damascus.
Interesting isn’t it, how, here we have a forum where it is a given that everything the mainstream media has to report on global warming and climate change is taken as being propagandist nonsense. Yet, apparently, in other matters they are a paragon of truth and virtue. Spend more time researching this matter on alternative media outlets.
Dave, put down your crack pipe and also explain how George Bush rigged the World Trade Center with explosives to win favor…
Maybe you’d like to explain how George Bush invaded and destroyed Iraq based on the total BS lie about “weapons of mass destruction.” An entire country transformed into a Jihadist hellhole, and the birthplace of ISIS, because of warmongering neocon lie. How’d that work out? We’re about to see a repeat.
So you DO believe Bush blew up the twin Towers! Thanks comrade Drewski! Neo-communist Lunatics like you never cease to entertain us!
I did not say anything about the twin towers. However, since you brought it up, who did Bush bomb when they came down? Was it Iraq… orrr… was it Afghanistan?
And, I can assure you I am not Drewski. I was a Trump supporter, until this happened. I had such high hopes he would have prevented another intervention. And now, well…..
Is this the same result we would have had if we sent James Taylor to ASSad’s doorstep singing “You’ve got a friend”?
Dave have you been smoking wacky weed from your hooka again have you been sniffing glue or watching crappy movies like AVATAR or NORM OF THE NORTH? maybe you should call yourself Urn becuase your cracked
“Dave”, Drewski, whatever you’re calling yourself lately…
I will give you credit for one thing. Unlike most of your comrades, by responding to this OP as a political issue rather than disguising your intent with environmental nonsense, you have shown a bit more honesty of intent than we are accustomed. So, by that telling insult of being called an evil “neo-con” – which BTW translates to “new conservative” (oh, my that hurts!) you are clearly in favor of some kind of socialism as opposed to free market democracy.
So, in the spirit of this refreshing newfound honesty why don’t you begin by explaining the virtues of socialism. Maybe you can start with Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. We’d love to understand how the gulags, reeducation camps, and killing fields served the interest of “social justice”.
Perhaps after that you can move on to the marvels of socialist economics and show us how much better the people have fared in these burgeoning economies verses free market societies. There’s just so much we need to learn from a gifted mind like yours…
G, you couldn’t be more wrong. I assure you I am NOT Drewski. Would Drewski say this:
I appreciate, and generally agree with, your postings here, and those of most of the other regulars here as well. And I REALLY like Amber, and kind of feel bad in the way I responded. Shouldn’t have responded at all really. It’s just a subject that has me really peeved at the moment. It smells to high heaven in so many ways, and people need to look farther than the MSM. In any case, it’s a political issue that really has no place in a forum such as this. I should have just let it pass and shut the hell up. I am actually an old fashioned conservative. I despise socialism and its ugly sister communism. I was a Trump supporter until this indent and now, well….
In an un-Drewski fashion, I am now going to bow out, and just shut the hell up, like I should have in the beginning. Let the climate related posts resume…..
Dave, you’re a peacenik? Fine by me. The scenario you presented was first offeref by the Syrians. I read it then and laughed it off. You and I both respect life, the first victim of war is the truth.
The Iraq war could have had a better result, but someone pulled out the troops (peace keepers?) before the job was finished . Remember that Sadam Hussain bluffed that he had WMD. He was genocidal .
There are places in this world that need an iron fist to manage them, Russia for example. The Middle East may never see peace. At least keep a lid on it. Thanks to Trump, there’s 30 fighter jets that’ll never fly again.
Wow! Well it surely looked like a Drewski post… What convinced me was the near direct quote of the brutal Assad regime that conjured up such a bizarre and convoluted counter claim.
It does impress me that you came right out and said that you despise socialism and communism. Most people deeply invested in the climate change movement are merely using it (and environmentalism) as a dishonest canard for their extreme leftist political agendas. As a practitioner in the life sciences, I am appalled by the blatant corruption of science caused by politically motivated leftists. These people will dodge their political motivation at every opportunity, as truth is not their friend.
Clearly I am dedicated to exposing the history of fundamental failures, abuses, and crimes of socialism/communism as it inevitably devolves into tyranny. I maintain that economies are successful to the extent that they avoid socialist policies and embrace free markets. Even basic social welfare programs that we nearly all agree are necessary create a drag, but at least that is an honest acknowledgement of social obligations, far from the fraudulent leftist Utopian model.