China rejects US sanctions push against Iran
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- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the US will impose "the toughest sanctions in history" on Iran, demanding allies join in "the greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world" with an "either with us or against us" ultimatum.
- Bessent explicitly framed the goal as inflicting "substantial inflation, both food inflation and ordinary inflation" on Iran's 90 million people, comparing the approach to US sanctions that fueled humanitarian crises in Venezuela and Cuba.
- China rejected the campaign through Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian, who declared Beijing "opposes illicit unilateral sanctions that lack basis in international law and UN Security Council mandate" and called for dialogue instead.
- China purchases roughly 80% of Iran's oil exports and depends on the Persian Gulf for half its energy, making it the linchpin Bessent tried to pressure into compliance.
- Iran vowed retaliation, with armed forces chief of staff Maj. Gen. Ali Abdollahi promising "crushing, punishing, and devastating responses" across land, sea, air, air defense, and cyberspace; parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf conceded further sanctions could be devastating.
- Strait of Hormuz shipping remains in the single digits daily, crude oil prices sit 30% higher than at the war's start, and US gas prices are up more than a dollar per gallon.
- Analyst Gregory Brew noted the pivot lacks clear purpose: "Bessent and others cannot say what this policy is meant to achieve – reopening the strait – because in the admin's telling, the strait is already open."
Why it matters: The sanctions campaign's success depends on whether China stops buying Iranian oil, and Beijing has now publicly refused. Enforcing that against the US's third-largest trading partner before the November midterm elections risks a two-front economic fight while crude remains 30% above prewar levels and US gas prices sit more than a dollar higher per gallon.
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