Donald Trump’s trade deal with Japan turned heads when the US president announced, in addition to tariffs and investment pledges, that the allies would enter into a natural gas joint venture in Alaska.
The claim seemed to mark the resurrection of a long-standing US ambition, a liquefied natural gas project including an 800-mile pipeline across the state. Analysts have estimated the project could cost more than $60bn.
Washington has argued that the pipeline linking Alaska’s northern gasfields to the southern port of Nikiski would expedite supplies to Pacific allies. It has sought to press Japan and South Korea — the world’s second- and third-largest buyers of LNG, after China — to back the scheme by bundling it with tariff negotiations.