China to increase US oil imports

Reuters:

Sinopec, Asia’s largest refiner, will boost U.S. crude oil imports to an all-time high as China tries to reduce its trade deficit with the United States, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday.

The company’s trading arm Unipec has bought 16 million barrels, or about 533,000 barrels per day (bpd), of U.S. crude to load in June, they said, the largest volume ever to be lifted in a month by the company.

“The government has encouraged us to lift more U.S. crude,” one of the sources said.
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China has pledged to buy more U.S. goods to reduce the huge trade deficit with the United States and help ease the threat of a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. Energy and commodities are high on Washington’s list of products for sale.
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Why did Obama never think of doing this with China?  I suspect because he was a CO2 phobe who was trying to reduce oil and gas production despite abundant alternative supplies to fill the market he was denying to US producers.