Good morning from the Financial Times.
Today is Friday, April 18th, and this is your FT News briefing.
The U.S.'s trade war is cooling energy cooperation,
and Japan's trade minister got a first-hand look at Donald Trump's negotiating tactics.
While he was in the air flying from Tokyo to Washington,
Trump went on to social and said that he would be joining the meeting.
Plus, the search for alien life got a major boost this week.
I'm Mark Filippino, and here's the news you need to start your day.
China has stopped buying liquefied natural gas from the U.S. For more than 10 weeks now,
there haven't been any shipments between the two countries.
And it's a signal that Trump's trade war has spilled over into the energy sector.
China has imposed a 49% tariff on U.S. gas, which makes the stuff just too expensive for most Chinese buyers.
The freeze in imports raises a lot of questions about a multi-billion dollar expansion of gas facilities in the U.S. and Mexico.
Chinese companies now want to renegotiate their contracts.
Japan's top trade negotiator was in Washington this week.
Tokyo is the first major capital to kickstart tariff negotiations with the Trump administration,
which makes Japan a bit of a guinea pig, as my colleague Leo Lewis has said.
He's here with me now.
Leo, get me up to speed here on the position that Japan was in going into these talks.
So when this all started, Japan thought that it was in, perhaps,