The Trump administration risks a clash with Beijing as it tries to cut off Iran’s economic lifelines without upending a fragile U.S.-China truce.
By Alexandra StevensonAaron Krolik and Keith Bradsher
Alexandra Stevenson reported from Hong Kong, Aaron Krolik reported from New York and Keith Bradsher from Beijing.
China lashed out at the Trump administration’s new sanctions campaign against Iran on Tuesday, warning that it would defend its interests and accusing the United States of disrupting the global financial order.
The reaction set the stage for renewed friction between the world’s superpowers.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday outlined plans to “sever every economic lifeline” to Iran, targeting a constellation of players that continue to provide the country with a financial lifeline. But the administration appeared to tread carefully around China, by far the largest customer of its most valuable export: oil.
The U.S. list of more than 60 brokers, companies and ships subject to sanctions included more than a dozen small companies from Hong Kong and China. Conspicuously absent were heavyweights in China’s financial system — a sign, some experts said, that Washington was reluctant to jeopardize a fragile truce with China.
Beijing nevertheless responded forcefully. China would “take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard its own rights and interests,” Lin Jian, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, said at a news briefing on Tuesday.
Chinese state media went further. An editorial cartoon in China News portrayed the Statue of Liberty as a drug user with needles protruding from one arm, describing Washington’s use of sanctions as “an addiction.”
The confrontational reaction underscored a dilemma for the Trump administration. Beijing has long defied American sanctions and continued to buy Iranian oil. At the same time, China supplied Tehran with raw materials and technology that support its economy and military. Yet, nearly six months into a war with Iran, the United States has shown little appetite for opening another economic front with an increasingly retaliatory China.
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