Get audio access with any FP subscription. Subscribe Now ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

Get audio access with any FP subscription.

ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

There’s a fatal flaw to the Trump administration’s recently announced “economic D-Day” against Iran. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared that the new U.S. sanctions and pressure campaign was designed to “sever every economic lifeline that sustains the tyrannical regime” in Iran. But Iran’s single greatest lifeline, China, went unnamed.

China has long been the largest buyer of Iranian oil, with some estimates claiming that about 90 percent of Iran’s oil is shipped there through a network of “shadow fleets.” China also offers access to the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) that facilitates bank transfers outside of the U.S. dollar system, and through which volumes have gone up from 680 billion renminbi (RMB) per day to 790 billion RMB since the Iran war was launched. Thus, if the United States actually wanted to seriously harm Iran economically, it would have to go after China.

There’s a fatal flaw to the Trump administration’s recently announced “economic D-Day” against Iran. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared that the new U.S. sanctions and pressure campaign was designed to “sever every economic lifeline that sustains the tyrannical regime” in Iran. But Iran’s single greatest lifeline, China, went unnamed.

China has long been the largest buyer of Iranian oil, with some estimates claiming that about 90 percent of Iran’s oil is shipped there through a network........

© Foreign Policy