After the US threatened countries continuing economic ties with Iran with sweeping secondary sanctions under “Operation Economic Outcast”, China hit back on Tuesday and said that it would safeguard its interests.
In a regular news briefing, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that it “firmly opposes illegal unilateral sanctions” and that it will take all measures to safeguard its own rights and interests.
He said that the cooperation between China and Iran “should not be interfered with or disrupted”. The Chinese official urged the US and Iran to agree to a ceasefire and insisted that US sanctions will not resolve the conflict.
Announced by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, this “economic D-day” aims to completely isolate Tehran by severing its access to the US dollar system. While the US declined to officially name specific nations, the trading partners that are most at risk of US retaliation are China, the UAE, Turkey, Iraq, the European Union, India, Pakistan, and the Russian Federation.
“Economic Asphyxiation” Of Iran
US President Donald Trump’s administration in the United States has laid out plans for the “economic asphyxiation” of Iran, expanding Washington’s secondary sanctions threats under its “economic D-Day” campaign to isolate Tehran from the global economy. The US has also threatened penalties against “enablers” that continue doing business with Tehran.
Projecting the planned economic starvation as ‘endgame’, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said expanded secondary sanctions would target Iran’s digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping sectors.
China Is Iran’s Largest Trading Partner
China is Iran’s largest trading partner, accounting for nearly one-third of the country’s non-oil foreign trade. It is also the biggest buyer, accounting for nearly 90 per cent of its oil exports, according to US government data.
Beijing reported $9.96 billion in bilateral trade with Tehran in 2025. This number, according to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, excluded roughly $31.2 billion in unreported Iranian crude oil exports to China that year.
Kpler estimates that China bought an average of 1.38 million barrels per day of Iranian oil in 2025. It noted that independent Chinese refiners take Iranian oil in bulk, often rebranding it as Malaysian or Indonesian crude and settling through intermediaries outside the dollar system.
The US Treasury in April imposed sanctions on a Chinese independent refinery for buying billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil and warned Chinese banks of secondary sanctions if they facilitated trade of Iranian oil.
(With inputs from agencies)
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