President Donald Trump’s initiatives to bolster the U.S. coal industry are facing challenges as international sales dwindle, largely due to his ongoing trade dispute with China, according to recent government findings.

The halt in U.S. coal imports by China is a major factor contributing to a 14% drop in American coal exports this year, analysts and the U.S. Energy Information Administration report.

As Trump prepares to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, hopes of advancing trade relations are on the rise. However, it remains unclear if these discussions will benefit the U.S. coal sector.

“It’s difficult to predict if this will simply maintain current levels or lead to increased exports of coal and soybeans to China,” remarked Seth Feaster, a coal analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, on Friday.

Trump has been rolling back regulations and permitting expanded mining operations on federal lands, a move aimed at ensuring energy reliability, economic strength, and maintaining America’s energy leadership, according to Charlotte Taylor, a spokesperson for the Interior Department, in an emailed statement Friday.

The administration has also reduced royalty rates for coal extracted from federal lands and in September pledged $625 million to bolster coal power generation, including by recommissioning or modernizing old coal plants amid growing electricity demand from artificial intelligence and data centers.

Recent government coal lease sales in Montana, Wyoming and Utah, however, have failed to draw bids deemed acceptable by the Interior Department.

So far this year, U.S. coal production is up about 6%, due not to Trump policies but higher natural gas prices, Feaster said.

Meanwhile, coal exports fell 14% from January through September compared to the same time last year, according to an EIA report released Oct. 7.

The drop followed an additional Chinese tariff of 15% on U.S. coal in February and a 34% reciprocal Chinese tariff on imports from the U.S. in April, the EIA said in a report issued Friday.

The U.S. exports about one-fifth of the coal it produces. Most goes to India, the Netherlands, Japan, Brazil and South Korea.

China is not a top destination, taking in only about one-tenth of U.S. coal exports. But it has had an outsized effect on overall U.S. coal exports by halting all coal from the U.S. since April, said Andy Blumenfeld, a coal analyst at McCloskey by OPIS.

Almost three-quarters of U.S. coal exported to China last year was metallurgical coal used in steelmaking. The rest was thermal coal burned in power plants to produce electricity, according to Blumenfeld.

Nearly all U.S. metallurgical coal is mined in Appalachia, while the bulk of U.S. thermal coal comes from massive, open-pit mines in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana.

Appalachia would therefore benefit most from a resumption of U.S. coal exports to China, noted Blumenfeld by email.

“There is optimism,” Blumenfeld wrote. “But there is little documentation to back that up right now.”

Most coal headed for China last year went through Baltimore, with lesser amounts via the Norfolk, Virginia, area and Gulf of Mexico, according to Blumenfeld.

Relatively little thermal coal from the Western U.S. is exported due to the cost of hauling it by rail to the West Coast, where there has also been political resistance to building port facilities to export more coal.