America’s latest attempt to break Iran may expose the limits of economic power rather than demonstrate its reach. Washington has moved from bombs to bargaining and now to financial strangulation. The Trump administration’s new campaign threatens countries and companies that continue doing business with Tehran, while targeting the shipping, aviation, technology, gold and digital networks that help Iran evade sanctions. Yet the most consequential weapon ~ secondary sanctions against major foreign financial institutions ~ has so far remained largely a threat.

That distinction matters. Sanctions are powerful when the threatened country has nowhere else to go. Iran has spent decades learning precisely how to survive economic isolation. Its networks of intermediaries, shadow shipping, informal finance and sanctions-busting companies have not disappeared. The country is badly weakened, but weakness is not the same as surrender. The bigger problem for Washington is China. Beijing remains the principal buyer of Iranian oil, and the new American measures conspicuously stopped short of imposing penalties on major Chinese financial institutions. Washington can threaten Chinese companies; shutting them out of the American........

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