Exerting maximum economic pressure on Tehran would risk blowback from Beijing. Analysts aren’t sure either side is ready to risk ties over Iran.
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.
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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”.
“The president has created the conditions to leverage every agency, every authority and action many assumed we would never summon,” said Bessent, who is scheduled to unveil the sanctions in a news conference at 17:00 GMT.
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.
“That is not a relationship you degrade lightly. 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.
“If they do not, it will be a tacit admission from the Trump administration that they do not believe economic hardship can seriously bring about a change in the Iranian position,” Erickson said.
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.
“Cutting off Chinese economic ties will be key to the success of any attempt to increase pressure on Iran. 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.
“If it does, China will retaliate and has the leverage to impose costs on the US,” Kavanagh said.
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.
Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned on Saturday that any country that participated in sanctions would be considered an “enemy” and that “not a drop” of oil would leave the Gulf if Iran’s neighbours joined the US campaign.
Wang Wen, dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, said Beijing would inevitably take countermeasures in response to any US sanctions and their intensity would depend on the “severity of US actions”.
“China maintains its desire to avoid conflict, but its bottom line cannot be crossed,” Wang told Al Jazeera.
For Trump, invoking Beijing’s ire would risk not only economic retaliation, but also unravelling efforts to stabilise US-China relations only weeks before the US president is due to host Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the White House.
Trump’s scheduled summit with Xi on September 24 would be their second face-to-face meeting aimed at lowering the temperature in US-China relations since Washington launched its war on Iran in late February, following Trump’s visit to Beijing in May.
Zichen Wang, deputy secretary-general of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) think tank in Beijing, said neither Beijing nor Washington were likely to want Iran to define the upcoming summit.
“Unless the US measures become very broad or directly target major Chinese interests, both sides are likely to try to keep this dispute from overwhelming the wider agenda,” Wang told Al Jazeera.
“That said, Chinese restraint should not be read as an absence of response,” Wang said.
“Beijing has often avoided immediate rhetorical escalation, but when unilateral US actions have materially affected Chinese companies or other Chinese interests, it has shown a growing willingness to answer with practical countermeasures.”
While the Trump administration could potentially make it more challenging and expensive for China to continue its economic support of Iran, it is unlikely to be able to stop Beijing outright if it is determined to maintain ties, said Erickson of Obsidian Risk Advisors.
“US sanctions can absolutely force companies to de-risk in order to avoid exposure, but there will always be an entity willing to fill this role,” Erickson said, adding that Xi is unlikely to “merely stand by while Trump flexes the powers of American economic statecraft without flexing Beijing’s own in return”.
Though US officials have stated their intention to “collapse” Iran’s government with ramped-up sanctions, Erickson expressed doubt that the Trump administration will be able to achieve its war goals through economic pressure alone.
“Unless the Trump administration is willing to burn serious bridges and employ all remaining levers of economic warfare simultaneously, there is no reasonable assertion that can be made that it will be able to produce the victory that kinetic warfare could not,” he said.
Facts Only
* The U.S. aims to sever all economic lifelines sustaining Iran through sanctions.
* This action would place China, Iran’s biggest trade partner, in the crosshairs of U.S. sanctions.
* China reported $9.96 billion in two-way trade with Iran in 2025, excluding some oil shipments.
* China’s purchases of Iranian oil accounted for about 90 percent of Iran's oil sales.
* U.S. sanctions previously targeted only a handful of minor China-based entities related to Iranian oil trade, such as Hengli Petrochemical.
* The U.S. has left Chinese financial institutions largely untouched regarding Iran’s oil trade.
* China opposed U.S. sanctions, arguing economic pressure would not resolve the conflict.
* Iran threatened retaliation against countries supporting U.S. measures.
* China anticipates countermeasures in response to U.S. sanctions, with intensity depending on the severity of U.S. actions.
Executive Summary
The threat of the United States imposing maximum economic pressure on Iran risks significant negative repercussions from China, Iran’s largest trade partner. This potential action places China directly in the crosshairs of U.S. sanctions. Analysts remain uncertain about the readiness of either party to risk existing ties over this issue. The U.S. administration has signaled an intention to sever all economic lifelines sustaining Iran through what is described as the toughest sanctions campaign yet.
US officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, have indicated that countries fearful of breaking ties with Iran should consider the cost of testing Washington. Experts suggest that targeting China would signal a prolonged economic war against Tehran, as China holds immense economic importance to both nations. While US pressure could constrain China's ability to support Iran, some analysis suggests that China may possess enough leverage to resist full isolation without facing severe repercussions from the United States, especially given ongoing economic interdependence and China's own desire to avoid conflict.
Full Take
The narrative centers on the tension between unilateral economic coercion and systemic geopolitical realities. The core pattern involves leveraging economic interdependence—specifically China's critical role in Iran's energy supply—as a variable in international conflict management. The skepticism surrounding the administration’s capacity to sustain such pressure without triggering broader fallout, especially concerning US-China relations ahead of potential high-level summits, suggests that economic leverage alone may be insufficient for achieving kinetic or fundamental political shifts.
The resistance from Beijing, predicated on avoiding conflict and maintaining its bottom line, introduces a critical layer of contingency: China’s response will depend not just on the severity of U.S. actions but also on the perceived risk to broader strategic interests. This dynamic highlights how economic strategy interacts with great power competition; when one actor attempts to isolate an entity dependent on another major power, the dependency itself becomes a powerful counterweight. The fact that existing sanctions have been narrowly targeted while leaving core financial nodes untouched points toward a calculated restraint in pursuing maximum leverage, suggesting that immediate, broad economic warfare risks unintended systemic instability rather than achieving the desired political outcome.
What are the unstated assumptions regarding the relative power of economic constraints versus strategic accommodation? If the goal is to force a change in Iran's position, does ignoring China’s potential response risk alienating Beijing in a way that negates any short-term sanctions gain? Does the focus on "economic D-Day" over kinetic options reflect a deeper acknowledgment that current levers of economic warfare may be constrained by existing structural relationships?
Sentinel — Human
The text appears to be a synthesis of expert commentary on complex international economic pressure, exhibiting the characteristic variability found in human analytical writing.