Trump's Iran Blockade Risks US-China Standoff
President Donald Trump’s blockade of Iranian exports has been put to the test, with reports indicating several tankers have managed to sail through the Strait of Hormuz unimpeded. At least one of them has direct links to China.
While public data shows the Malawi flagged Rich Starry, owned by Shanghai Xuanrun Shipping Company Limited, last departed from the United Arab Emirates’ Sharjah anchorage, as opposed to an Iranian port, the ship had been previously slapped with U.S. sanctions in 2023 for shipping Iranian oil.
Tehran is a key energy partner for Beijing, which buys roughly 80 percent to 90 percent of Iran’s shipped oil, constituting about 13 percent of seaborne oil imports for China, the world’s largest crude buyer.
And with shipments from Venezuela down significantly since the U.S. raid that seized President Nicolás Maduro and saw Trump claim control over the South American nation’s energy trade in January, Chinese analysts have raised concerns that the U.S. was intentionally attempting to throttle the discounted supply of its top competitor.
Should China seek to openly defy the latest U.S. measure, and Trump move to enforce it, a standoff could bring with it major consequences on other fronts.
“It's worth remembering what happened the last time the U.S. applied economic coercion against China,” Andy Mok, senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, told Newsweek. “Beijing responded with rare earth export controls that exposed critical vulnerabilities in U.S. defense supply chains. That's not a hypothetical scenario. That's recent history.”
“Seizing a vessel conducting lawful trade with China would be a significant escalation, and China has a broad range of tools available to respond: Diplomatic, economic, financial, supply chain,” he added. “Any response would likely come not in the Strait of Hormuz but in domains where China holds structural advantage.”
The lesson, he argued, is that “coercive actions tend to generate asymmetric responses in surprisingly painful places.”
New Kind of Cold War
Widely viewed as the world’s leading powers, Washington and Beijing have been engaged in fierce competition in various sectors, with China demonstrating the capacity to retaliate against U.S. measures.
During his first term, Trump commenced a campaign of tariffs on the pretext of alleging China engaged in unfair commercial practices, including intellectual property theft and forced technology transfer, setting off a trade war as Chinese President Xi Jinping issued tariffs against U.S. goods in response.
The battle ebbed and flowed, expanding to include advanced technology such as chipmaking equipment and semiconductors, and persisting throughout President Joe Biden’s administration. When Trump took office again last year, he imposed tariffs as high as 145 percent on Chinese goods, setting off a new round of friction that resulted in higher costs for U.S. consumers and businesses.
Tensions may have simmered down with a May 2025 trade agreement, yet systemic rivalry persists. And Trump more recently revisited the issue when on Sunday he threatened 50 percent tariffs against China if reports alleging Beijing was providing man-portable air defense systems to Iran proved true.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun denied the reports, which first appeared on CNN, citing people familiar with U.S. intelligence assessments, during a press conference Tuesday.
“China always acts prudently and responsibly on the export of military products, and exercises strict control in accordance with China's laws and regulations on export control and due international obligations,” Guo told reporters. “Relevant media reports are purely fabricated.
“If the U.S. goes ahead with the tariff hikes on China on the basis of these accusations,” he said, “China will respond with countermeasures.”
Guo also hit out at the U.S. blockade policy, adopted after failed U.S.-Iran peace talks in Pakistan last weekend, calling it “a dangerous and irresponsible move” that “will only aggravate confrontation, escalate tension, undermine the already fragile ceasefire and further jeopardize safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Newsweek has reached out to the Chinese Embassy to the U.S. and the U.S. State Department for comment.
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Protective Measures
China has long invested in relations with Iran, extending beyond its role as a key oil supplier. The two nations inked a 25-year comprehensive strategic partnership agreement in 2021 that outlined hundreds of billions of dollars of direct Chinese investment in the Islamic Republic.
The goodwill penetrated Iran’s efforts to close off the Strait of Hormuz as a pressure tactic in the U.S.-Israeli war against the Islamic Republic, with Chinese ships allowed to pass by Tehran.
The two nations have also conducted several joint naval exercises alongside Russia, including a drill launched in the Strait of Hormuz in the immediate lead-up to the war launched in late February.
China has sought to enhance its power projection across the globe as well. With a base in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti, which also hosts U.S. military facilities, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has expanded anti-piracy operations off the shores of Yemen.
Earlier this month, the 48th Chinese Naval Escort Taskforce, including guided-missile destroyers and support ships, carried out live-fire operations in the Gulf of Aden.
Yet few expect a traditional military standoff even in the event of the U.S. blockade emerging into a crisis.
“I do not see Chinese military involvement in the Gulf events, no matter what nasty turn it may take, as likely,” Susan Thornton, former State Department acting assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told Newsweek. “I'd also be surprised if the Chinese government is knowingly supplying weapons to Tehran, but maybe more solid information will come out about that.”
She also doubted that the White House was pursuing a deliberate effort to hinder Beijing’s energy imports, viewing the notion as “trying to overlay strategy on top of impulse or a set of more narrow, unconnected actions.”
“China is very concerned about the instability in energy markets and the global economy resulting from the current Iran war,” said Thornton, senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center. “That said, I don't detect that they are particularly worried about supply in the short run. If things drag on, they will be increasingly anxious.”
Mok, for his part, was skeptical that “the U.S. Navy can actually sustain a blockade long enough to matter,” he said, referring to Congressional Budget Office data showing maintenance backlogs impacting the readiness of destroyers, substantial lags in submarine production and an overall fleet of 290 ships that is “half of its Cold War peak.”
“Every vessel committed to a blockade is one pulled from somewhere else,” Mok said, “and the Navy is already overstretched across three theaters.”
In parallel with operations in the Middle East, the U.S. is also drawing Chinese ire by doubling down on support for the Philippines as territorial disputes between Beijing and Manila fester in the South China Sea.
Closer to U.S. shores, the Trump administration is simultaneously waging a second blockade campaign with the intent of cutting off Cuba from energy imports under threat of tariffs against any suppliers. So far, one Russian tanker has passed through without consequences, with a second reportedly on the way.
But even if the U.S. blockade on Iran were to hold, Mok argued, Beijing has already sought to cushion itself from global energy shocks by accelerating toward alternative forms of energy, a trend he outlined in his book, “The Innovation Machine: How China Creates and Adopts Technology through Governance.”
“China identified energy security as a strategic priority and then moved it efficiently through institutions, instruments and infrastructure to produce real-world results: the world's largest renewable buildout, the world's largest EV fleet, a rapidly diversifying nuclear program,” Mok said. “A blockade of Iranian exports would be a 20th-century tool applied to a 21st-century electro-state.”
“The coercive logic breaks down on both sides,” he added. “The instrument can't sustain the mission, and the target has already built around the vulnerability the instrument is designed to exploit.”
Trump-Xi Dynamic
Shuxian Luo, assistant professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, also doubted the likelihood of a Chinese military response to any U.S. seizure of a vessel tied to China “due to Beijing’s lack of both capability and willingness.”
However, she told Newsweek that “such a move could trigger a major U.S.-China diplomatic crisis.”
Luo said such a scenario could come to resemble the 1993 Yinhe incident, during which the U.S. Navy surrounded a Chinese container ship suspected of carrying chemical weapons precursors to Iran. The ship was released after 24 days, when a joint U.S.-Saudi inspection determined that no such materials were onboard.
The incident and U.S. refusal to apologize prompted a surge in anti-U.S. sentiment in China. Now, geopolitical tensions are even more pronounced between the two powers, and Luo concluded that “the domestic pressure on Chinese decision-makers to take an unyielding posture today would be significantly higher than it was 30 years ago.”
The result, she predicted, could be a major setback for U.S.-China ties and potentially even the cancellation of Trump’s planned visit to meet Xi in Beijing, a trip already delayed beyond its original slated date late last month as a result of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.
“This would make the situation much more difficult to deescalate,” Luo said, “probably even putting the upcoming Xi-Trump summit in jeopardy despite Beijing’s desire for the meeting to take place.”
Newsweek's reporters and editors used Martyn, our Al assistant, to help produce this story. Learn more about Martyn.
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This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 2:34 PM.