Coal and winter heating; Complaints about the iron-ore price; US-China

With 34 days left in the Trump Administration have we passed the moment of maximum risk of Trump Administration moves against China?

The recent Hong Kong-related sanctions on the NPC vice-chairpersons were anti-climatic as they did not cross a Chinese “red line” and include the NPC Chairman, Standing Committee Member and Xi consigliere Li Zhanshu, and last week the Treasury department declined to impose any sanctions on financial institutions over Hong Kong.

We are into the holiday season here, people in the administration need to figure out their next jobs, and frankly President Trump seems to no longer care. As we have learned over the last four years the President can change on a tweet, but I will now guess that while there may still be some additional moves against China things between the US and China will be calmer over the next five weeks than I originally expected (famous last words?)

It looks like the campaign to buy time and space for Xi and the CCP by convincing Team Biden t…