China First, nice policy of the bought and paid for Cho Bai Den. "Hey China, if we release oil and sell it to you from our SPR reserve and you do the same thing with your oil reserves we can drive down gas prices."
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics...top-chinese-energy-official-spr-release-sales
As part of its announcement in November 2021, the White House said it was releasing oil from U.S. reserves in conjunction with "other major energy consuming nations including China." However, President Biden said in remarks after the announcement that China "may do more as well" and Granholm told reporters during a press briefing that China "will make its own announcement."
What happened next will shock nobody: instead of releasing oil stocks, China aggressively increased its own reserves, and even bought fuel from the US.[/b] Meanwhile, SPR releases have weakened U.S. national security and bolstered foreign adversaries' "geopolitical leverage" according to Republican leaders.
"China ramped up its purchases of crude oil from Russia and the United States to boost its own reserves, even as oil prices surged and President Biden called for a coordinated release," House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and former GOP Rep. Fred Upton wrote to Granholm last year.
"As a result, China may now control the world’s largest stockpile of oil, with total crude inventories estimated at 950 million barrels," they added.
