US President Donald Trump’s administration has said it aims to sever “every” economic lifeline sustaining Iran in what officials have warned will be the toughest sanctions campaign ever seen. The threat, if followed through, would mean putting China, Iran’s biggest trade partner, squarely in the crosshairs of US sanctions. That would be a risky proposition for Washington due to the likelihood of severe blowback from Beijing – so much so that some analysts doubt that the Trump administration’s measures, set to be announced on Monday, will match its rhetoric in scope or severity.
While the Trump administration has yet to provide details about what it has dubbed “economic D-Day”, US officials have made it clear that Iran’s trade partners are in their sights. In an op-ed in the Financial Times on Sunday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that countries fearful of breaking ties with Iran should not “discount the cost of testing Washington”. Brett Erickson, a sanctions expert and managing principal of Obsidian Risk Advisors, said the Trump administration’s willingness to target China will be an indication of its resolve to mount a sustained economic offensive against Tehran.
If the United States decides to really bring China into the ring, it will be a serious indication that the United States plans to wage this economic war for a prolonged period of time,” Erickson told Al Jazeera. Any US pressure campaign that excludes China would be necessarily limited in scope given the outsized importance of Beijing and Tehran’s economic ties. China reported $9.96bn in two-way trade with Iran in 2025, a figure that does not include some $31.2bn in Iranian oil shipments, according to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
China’s purchases of Iranian oil have been a particularly crucial lifeline for Tehran, accounting for about 90 percent of its oil sales, according to the US Treasury Department. Until now, the Trump administration’s Iran sanctions regime has targeted only a handful of relatively minor China-based entities. In April, the Trump administration sanctioned Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery, one of China’s largest independent refineries, commonly known as “teapots”, over its alleged purchases of Iranian oil.
The Trump administration also imposed sanctions on four firms in Hong Kong in May, followed by measures in August targeting six China and Hong Kong-based shipping lines. Washington has so far left Chinese financial institutions, widely viewed as a key node in Iran’s oil trade, untouched. However, the United States won’t do it,” Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, a Washington-based foreign policy think tank, told Al Jazeera.
China has vigorously opposed US sanctions against Iran, arguing that economic pressure will not resolve the nearly six-month-long war. In a statement on Sunday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Beijing remained “committed to promoting peace talks” and willing to “continue making efforts for the early restoration of peace and tranquility in the region”. Iran, for its part, has threatened to retaliate against countries that support the US measures.
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