Amid the market carnage and turmoil created by US President Donald Trump's global tariff strategy, there are likely some clear trends that will emerge.
One of these is that countries seeking to cut a deal with Trump will try to purchase more US goods in order to lower their trade surpluses with the United States.
The problem is that for many countries there is little that they want from the United States in terms of manufactured goods, and even relative success stories like Boeing aircraft serve to highlight the paucity of competitive US goods.
But there is one area where countries can try and up their imports from the United States, and that's energy commodities such as crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and coal.
The obvious problem is that if every country wanting to cut a deal with Trump commits to buying more US energy, the United States will very soon run out of capacity to supply the demand.
This means that early movers may actually be the ones who secure energy supplies from the United States, and may gain some leverage in talks with the Trump administration.
Japan and South Korea are two such countries that may well try to buy more US energy.
Both are major importers of crude, LNG and coal, both have wide trade surpluses with the United States and both are traditional US allies, although whether this counts for anything with Trump remains uncertain.
But even if Japan and South Korea pivot to buying US energy, will it make much difference to their trade balance with the United States?
Japan imported 12.44 million barrels of US crude in 2024, which was about 1.6 per cent of its total imports of 794.9 million barrels, according to data compiled by commodity analysts Kpler.
Assuming an average price of $70 a barrel for its imports, it means Japan spent $870.8 million on US crude in 2024.
What would be the highest share of US crude Japan could buy, given that it has long-term deals with its major suppliers like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates?
Japan also has to ensure that the grades of crude it purchases are suitable for processing in its refineries, and this will also be a limiting factor for US imports.
If Japan was able to ramp up its purchases of US crude to 10 per cent of its total imports, this would amount to about 80 million barrels a year, which at the current price of around $60 for US West Texas Intermediate would cost about $4.8 billion.
Japan's trade surplus with the United States was $68 billion in 2024, so even massively increasing imports of US crude would only have a small impact.
What about doing the same with LNG? Japan imported 6.5 million ton es of US LNG in 2024, or about 9.6 per cent of its total of 67.43 million tonnes, according to Kpler.
Given the fairly large share of US LNG already in Japan's imports, it would be hard to significantly increase it.
But for argument's sake, assume Japan can increase its share of US LNG in its imports to 30 per cent, or about 13.5 million tonnes.
At the current spot price of Asian LNG of $13 per million British thermal units, this would be worth about $9.13 billion, up from an assumed value of about $4.39 billion in 2024.
Again, this would help cut the trade surplus with the United States, but not dramatically.
Coal offers another avenue, with Japan importing 4.37 million tonnes from the United States in 2024, or about 2.8 per cent of its total of 153.73 million.
But importing coal from the United States involves higher costs than Japan's current top suppliers of Australia and Indonesia, given the longer shipping distances from the US east coast.
There is also capacity constraints on US coal exports, so its questionable as to how much more could realistically be supplied.
Japan also mainly buys metallurgical coal from the United States, and it would be challenging from a supply perspective to ramp up imports of this grade, meaning that any increase would largely be thermal coal.
If Japan could increase its share of US coal to 10 per cent of its imports, this would be worth about $1.5 billion, based on a thermal coal price of $100 a ton, in other words a tiny part of the overall trade surplus with the United States.
Overall, even if countries like Japan ramped up their imports of US energy commodities, it would make only a small dent in their trade surplus with the United States.
And US energy exporters would also rapidly run out of capacity if several major importers all try the same tactic simultaneously.
(By Clyde Russell; Editing by Christopher Cushing)