During Donald Trump's first term in the White House, the US launched a " Today Iran sells billions of dollars worth of oil every month. For this, Tehran can thank one country - China, writes WSJ.

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Tehran's Asian partner sharply increases purchases of Iranian oil as sanctions tighten. To make these purchases possible, Chinese buyers worked closely with Iran, expanding what U.S. officials and researchers say has become one of the world's largest sanctions-evasion networks..

Payments go through small Chinese banks that have limited international activity and have little to lose in the event of US sanctions.. Shell companies set up by Iran in Hong Kong and elsewhere help manage proceeds.

Private Chinese refineries have become the main buyers of Iranian oil after China's state-owned energy giants, fearing angering Washington, pulled out of the Iranian market.. False invoices and deliberate mislabeling of oil further disguised this trade..

All of these actions - laid out in US sanctions documents, public indictments and described by Western officials and researchers - have allowed Iran to rake in tens of billions of dollars in revenue each year from China..

" Iran simply could not have fought this war without the years of support it has received from China,"

China's Foreign Ministry has stressed it firmly opposes " Behind the scenes, however, China fears it could be accused of openly violating sanctions, which could provoke anger from Washington and also damage Beijing's relations with other Gulf states..

However, China remains interested in Iranian oil. Beijing needs energy and could buy Iranian oil at a significant discount after US sanctions scared off other buyers. Buying large amounts of oil also hinders US goals in the Middle East.

States tried to restrict this trade by expanding sanctions. However, Washington’s ability to put pressure on China is limited by the risk of rising world oil prices and destabilizing its own relations with Beijing.

The sanctions evasion system has continued to operate since the start of the US war with Iran, even though Tehran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to Western ships..

China's customs authorities have not officially reported oil imports from Iran since 2023, analysts say, to ease political tensions with Washington..

However, research firm Kpler, which tracks tanker movements, estimates that China bought about 1.4 million barrels of oil per day from Iran in 2025.. That represented more than 80% of Iranian oil sales last year and was more than double the roughly 650,000 barrels per day China bought from Iran in 2017, before Trump's "

Years ago, when sanctions against Tehran were less stringent, Chinese state-owned oil companies openly bought Iranian oil, as did many other buyers around the world.. The US has tightened regulations under President Barack Obama, making it much more difficult to do business with Iran.. The United States then eased sanctions after concluding a nuclear deal with Tehran in 2015. A number of countries, in particular India, Italy and Greece, have increased the volume of purchases of Iranian oil.

Everything changed when Trump first assumed the presidency of the United States.. He tore up the nuclear agreement and launched a "

Kpler estimates Iranian sales fell from nearly 2.8 million barrels a day in May 2018 to about 200,000 in August 2019 as buyers left the market..

But Iran quickly responded - with the help of China. Tehran, forced to rethink how it sells oil, has accelerated the development of a secret trading network, US officials and analysts say.. Iran set up oil trading companies and also created fictitious invoices that labeled Iranian oil as originating from other countries, such as Oman or Malaysia..

US sanctions have undoubtedly made life more difficult for Tehran and reduced its income. However, Iran continually found ways to sell oil and raise funds, eventually focusing almost entirely on trade with China.

Kpler estimates that Iranian exports have grown to more than a million barrels per day by the end of 2022, with shipments to China accounting for the largest share..

One of the key factors that made this trade possible was the expansion of the shadow fleet of tankers carrying sanctioned oil between Iran and China..

Tanker operators based in the Middle East, China and other regions have used tricks such as changing the names of ships, turning off equipment that signals their location, and transferring Iranian oil from one ship to another en route to China to hide its origin..

At the same time, buyers of Iranian oil were needed inside China.. Iran's traditional clients, particularly state-owned giants Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corp, have extensive global operations, meaning they could not afford to lose access to US financial markets by violating sanctions by buying Iranian oil..

But China also has a network of smaller oil refineries - called " These companies are less vulnerable to sanctions because they are believed to pay for oil from Iran in yuan rather than dollars.. Beijing gradually increased the volume of oil that " Previously, import volumes of such companies were limited by quotas established by the state.

Chinese buyers still had to find a way to pay for oil as US sanctions severely limited banking activities with Iran.. They eventually turned to smaller Chinese banks, which, like the Dummies, would have little to lose by falling under US sanctions compared to China's largest banks.

Indictments filed in US federal court provide deeper insight into how US investigators believe trade between China and Iran operates.. In one case from 2024, U.S. prosecutors alleged that buyers of Iranian oil sometimes worked directly with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, negotiating and executing multimillion-dollar oil deals through a front company for Iranians called China Oil \u0026 Petroleum Co..

Shell companies in Hong Kong and elsewhere were used to convert Chinese yuan into dollars, euros or other foreign currencies needed by Iran.. In some cases, Chinese buyers didn't even need to send money to pay. Instead, there were trade-of-service arrangements in which state-backed Chinese companies in Iran develop infrastructure there as compensation for oil..

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