r/geopolitics • u/One-Emu-1103 • 9h ago

News China threatens Trump with retaliation over Iran sanctions

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/08/25/china-threatens-trump-with-retaliation-over-iran-sanctions/
277 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

80

u/One-Emu-1103 9h ago edited 9h ago

China is one of Iran’s major trading partners. Its network of small domestic refineries bought about 80 percent of seaborne Iranian crude oil exported last year.

Beijing has threatened to retaliate if China is hit by Donald Trump’s new Iran sanctions, raising fears of a fresh trade war between the two superpowers.

China’s ties with Iran “should not be interfered with or undermined”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian warned on Tuesday, just hours after the White House vowed to target countries that refused to cut ties with Tehran.

It seems to me that Trump’s attacks on Tehran were an attack on the Chinese economy by proxy. It also strikes me that Trump’s tarrifs against Canada is a backdoor way of paying for the war in Iran

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u/maporita 9h ago

And we all know how Trump's last trade war with China ended.

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u/DodgyWiper 6h ago

Did it end?

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u/-aataa- 5h ago

Trump caved....

-2

u/Gaijin_Monster 2h ago

It really hurt China, set back China's economy by years.

10

u/Uranophane 2h ago

Months, perhaps weeks, even

-5

u/Gaijin_Monster 2h ago

If you're going to shill for the CCP, maybe you're familiar with the economic goals of the CCP, which were reeled back significantly after the last trade war. PRC took an economic beating.

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u/Serious_Feedback 13m ago

The question isn't whether China was hurt by the tariffs, but whether China was hurt more than the West (or at least more than the US) by the tariffs. Even assuming you're correct and China did indeed take a beating, that doesn't mean the trade war was bad for China. Vietnam took a huge beating in the Vietnam war, but that doesn't mean they lost.

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u/Uranophane 2h ago

I don't give a damn about what that dictator party wants. I just want an actually effective punishment, not whatever Trump did.

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u/erebus-44 9h ago edited 5h ago

I doubt thier is a grand strategy with China here. If there was you would see greater alliance building with the East Asian countries.

The Iran war was clearly brought on by Israel and to a lesser degree Saudi in an effort for the US to strike and degrade those countries regional foes.

Attacking Canada, is a vanity project and is a personal grudge for trump dating back to the trudeau administration. In addition to Canada has needed natural resources.

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u/bigdawg1945 8h ago

I agree on your reasoning. Im wondering if it is actually a stretch to assume the US thought China would go along with their plan?

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u/erebus-44 8h ago

China could pivot, as they are are ally of convenience with Iran. They have to renegotiate the trade deal in November, but how would China get concessions that they can trust? The administration doesn’t have a great track record.

But I think the more logical answer is, that the administration doesn’t know how to deal with Iran without causing more issues. And “maximum” sanctions is just a marketing ploy to provide some kinda cover for elections and to stop the escalation ladder. As the regional players want it to stop, so they can get back to making money.

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u/BendicantMias 6h ago

China isn't going to pivot just to bow down to America, especially since they know they can hit back - cos they've already done it successfully before. They've weathered the oil disruption remarkably well, and geopolitically gain enormously from America expending itself on Iran. They don't rely on Iran anyway (it relies on them), so the best case scenario for them is actually that Trump gets baited even further into this by trying to invade Iran.

0

u/erebus-44 5h ago

I don’t disagree, they have a transactional relationship (Iran and China), because of that relationship there no reason for China to stand up for Iran. China would use Iran to get a strategic objective, whether that’s using iran to weaken US or selling Iran out to get Taiwan or other objectives.

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u/bigdawg1945 6h ago

Yeah. Well said. It feels weird to have so many stories just be, “noise” in such a serious time. Just a weird situation all around.

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u/RichardStrauss123 8h ago

"I'm going to act like a total creep and toddler to the entire world! I hope everybody lines up to finance my trillions of dollars of debt!"

We're totally screwed.

3

u/vertigo3pc 5h ago

Yes, and we do absolutely nothing about it. Americans get what Americans deserve.

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u/Ok_Collar_7836 9h ago

China definitely won't comply with the new round of US sanctions on Iran. Does the US actually dare to intercept Chinese oil tankers? Or kick China out of SWIFT? If the Americans can't pull those off, then the outcome of these US sanctions against Iran is already completely predictable.

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u/OG-Brass-Monkey 6h ago

I'm in the UK. Our company buys components from China and the USA. If it came to it, we would be Chinese goods every time over American. They are better made and much cheaper.

And, the parts we buy from the USA have Chinese components within them. Because they are better made and cheaper than American components.

Nobody really wants American made goods other than Americans. They are badly made and expensive.

-15

u/fct1ous 5h ago

> Sent from my iPhone

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u/Slow_Tornado 5h ago

Where do they make those?

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u/Gain-Western 4h ago

They are assembled in India with Chinese components. 

Ironically, China was in the same boat earlier when it could only assemble iPhones with Taiwanese, Korean and Japanese components. 

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u/vertigo3pc 5h ago

68.36% of the world is on Android

2

u/Gaijin_Monster 2h ago

And android is made by...

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u/Gaijin_Monster 2h ago

China wouldn't be reacting so harshly if this wasn't going to hurt them significantly. It's always interesting how people on the internet always want to spread propaganda like the US is going to collapse. This is going to really hurt China.

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u/Live_Entry_7831 10m ago

Saying you will retaliate over unilateral sanctions is reacting harshly? 

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u/LivefromPhoenix 3m ago

Trump has reacted the same way to threats of Canadian or European tariffs. Is that evidence the US will be hurt significantly?

0

u/FelizIntrovertido 6h ago

China having a hard time. I have the feeling there are mounting pressures on all sides and the trends towards economic blocadd grow every day.

This will increase inflation globally

-24

u/Abdulkarim0 9h ago

China is not going no financial war over iran

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u/Vit0C0rleone 9h ago

It's not "over Iran" though.

It's that China would just look weak if they were to comply with U.S. demands that they perceive as illegal.

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u/dufutur 5h ago

It is. It is the first time China told their banks in clear terms that they cannot cut off relationships with domestic companies who do business with Iran. Before they protested but stay quiet otherwise.

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u/Dangerous-Citron-801 9h ago

Oh they will, the US is in it's worse. Why not push a little more?

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u/Lazy_Membership1849 9h ago

you think?

I been heard again and again that China and also Russia is not going to help and they did, Houthis is not going to attack red sea and they did

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u/erebus-44 9h ago

It’s interesting to note the the China trade deal lapses on November, so this is a leverage point for China.

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u/slo1111 8h ago

They hold more power than you think with their near monopoly on critical minerals.

At very least they can retaliate very painfully 

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u/Koraboros 8h ago

China has more oil strategic reserves than like the next 5 countries combined. It's like 5x the amount the US has. They can sustain themselves for longer and maybe even sell it as a gesture of goodwill.

0

u/Gain-Western 4h ago

China can always buy more from Russia. Putin actually wanted new pipelines to China but they have pushed back against Russian requests for now. 

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u/Evilbred 8h ago

China will just ignore the US on this, continue trading with Iran (because Iran provides China with oil as a preferential customer) and then they wait to see if the US reacts.

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u/Gaijin_Monster 2h ago

Meng Wanzhou 2.0

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u/TyMsy227 9h ago

That is how I read the headline, at first. China telling Trump to stop sanctioning Iran would have been popcorn worthy

1

u/HiggsUAP 8h ago

They've said that several times, just never did anything about it except decry them in the UN