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.
The announcement comes almost six months into a war in the Middle East that has ground to a stalemate, with stalled peace talks and Tehran blocking most traffic through the crucial Strait of Hormuz.
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, 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 U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, excluded roughly $31.2 billion in unreported Iranian crude oil exports to China that year. The Emirates, located just 50 miles from Iran across the Persian Gulf, has long been a major trading hub for Iran. The bilateral trade amounted to around $28 billion in 2024, when the Emirates was its largest source of imports, contributing over 30 per cent, according to the World Trade Organisation data. The Turkey-Iran bilateral trade reached $5.7 billion in 2024, according to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with Ankara exporting mostly machinery and parts, chemical and agricultural products, while importing energy products from Tehran. Iran renewed a five-year contract in March 2024 to supply Iraq with up to nearly 660 billion cubic feet of natural gas a year, and electricity imports from Iran accounted for more than 30 per cent of its electricity generation in 2023, according to the US Energy Information Administration. India, among Iran’s top five trading partners, has seen its bilateral trade with Iran fall in recent years to around $1.6 billion in the year ending March 2026, according to India’s Department of Commerce, down from $2.3 billion in the year through to March 2023.
Iraq, dependent on Iranian electricity and gas, has historically traded billions with Tehran.
