China Puts Kibosh On Fuel Exports A Week After Trump Asked Xi To Send More

China has suspended fuel exports a week after President Donald Trump pressed the Communist nation’s leader to help stabilize global supply.

The country’s refiners have suspended fuel exports for October, four people briefed on the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

On Wednesday, state-owned PetroChina canceled a handful of gasoline and jet fuel shipments planned for October, most of which it had agreed to within the past two weeks, three of the sources said.

During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit, Trump urged him to “increase production of refined petroleum products to stabilize global supply,” according to a Sept. 25 White House fact sheet.

The country has restricted fuel exports before and then rolled back the controls when doing so served its interests, Max Meizlish, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Economic and Financial Power, said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“China may temporarily restrict fuel, as it did earlier in the war, but then it will relieve those controls to save itself,” Meizlish said.

The world will then see the country “as a savior despite the fact that it’s actually China saving itself,” he added.

Diesel averaged $6.39 a gallon nationwide Thursday, up from $3.71 a year earlier, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).

The Chinese Embassy did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.