Why China Won't Cut Off North Korea’s Oil Lifeline

With North Korea advancing its ballistic missile capability, boasting it can strike anywhere in the U.S., President Donald Trump is pressing China to do more to rein in its errant neighbor. Beijing has joined United Nations sanctions aimed at tightening the economic noose on the regime but has held out on the biggest leverage of all: oil. Trump called President Xi Jinping in late November to tell him the time had come for China to cut off all oil exports to North Korea. China supplies most of North Korea’s crude, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, but it’s hard to know exactly how much. It hasn’t reported any volumes in its published customs data since 2013.

Some. The U.S. proposed a full oil embargo after North Korea tested its sixth and most powerful nuclear bomb in September. The UN Security Council watered down that request at the behest of China and Russia, cutting North Korea’s imports of refined petroleum products to 2 million barrels a year. Overall, the sanctions cut off more than 55 percent of refined petroleum products, representing about 30 percent of the country’s oil intake, according to the U.S.