Without China, US Can't Isolate Iran Economically

Without China, the US Can't Isolate Iran, and Tehran Itself Admits the War Is Hurting Badly

The Pakistan Times — Islamabad, August 23, 2026

Trump's newest push to economically choke Iran runs straight into a wall that Washington built for itself years ago and never really solved, China. According to reporting cited by the New York Times and echoed across multiple outlets covering this story, the entire plan to isolate Iran economically simply cannot work without Beijing's cooperation, and China has made it abundantly clear it has no intention of giving that cooperation.

Why China Holds the Real Cards Here

China buys roughly 90 percent of Iran's crude oil exports, according to trade data from Vortexa Analytics cited by Reuters, making Beijing not just a trading partner but the single financial lifeline keeping Iran's oil economy functioning despite decades of American sanctions. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been blunt about this reality himself, publicly urging China to get with the program in a CNBC interview, framing the choice bluntly as countries being either with the US or against it in this new campaign. China's response came fast and firm. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said sanctions and pressure tactics are not the solution, calling instead for political and diplomatic dialogue, a position Beijing has repeated consistently since the war began.

This isn't a new pattern either. China has absorbed previous rounds of US sanctions tied to its Iran oil purchases before and simply continued the trade anyway, treating it as ordinary commercial activity under Chinese law rather than something bound by American extraterritorial reach. With Chinese President Xi Jinping scheduled to visit the White House on September 24, analysts quoted by Al Jazeera say Trump has genuinely limited leverage to force Beijing's hand, especially with China getting around half its energy needs from the Gulf region and having no real incentive to jeopardize that relationship on Washington's behalf.

What This Means for Trump's Pressure Campaign

Bessent has called this effort the greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world, promising details at a press conference. But experts speaking to RFE/RL suggest genuinely unprecedented action would need to go well beyond another round of company-level sanctions, targeting Chinese banks, yuan-denominated oil payments, and the shipping and insurance networks that have kept Iranian oil moving for years. Whether Washington actually follows through at that scale, or whether this ends up as another round of tough talk without matching action, is exactly the question hanging over the campaign right now.

Iran's Own Admission of the Damage

Against this backdrop, Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian gave one of his most candid public assessments yet of how much the war is actually costing his country. In a televised address, he said Iran is currently in a complete state of economic, military, and security war, and admitted the government feels genuine shame over the scale of the country's economic problems. He specifically referenced Trump's sanctions threats, noting how easily the American president talks about imposing the most devastating or worst sanctions ever on Iran.

Even while acknowledging the severity of the pressure, Pezeshkian maintained that Iran continues standing despite this deeply unequal fight and is still trying to serve its people. He's also been pushing a parallel message in recent days, that ending the war now, while Iran can still negotiate from a position of strength, would be the wiser path forward, a sign that economic reality may be shaping Tehran's political calculations as much as anything happening on the battlefield.

Putting Both Pieces Together

What emerges from these two threads is a genuinely complicated picture. Iran's economy is visibly hurting, badly enough that its own president is admitting it publicly rather than putting on a defiant front. Yet the American strategy built to capitalize on that pain has a structural flaw sitting right at its center, without China's cooperation, and Beijing has shown zero appetite for offering it, the isolation Washington wants to impose may simply never fully materialize. That gap between Iran's real economic pain and America's limited ability to weaponize it through China is probably the single most important dynamic to watch as this conflict moves toward its sixth month.

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Sources: New York Times, 

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