Trump Vows 'Economic D-Day' on Iran, Skips Details

The part that decides whether any of it works

Iran's oil goes to China. Foreign Policy, citing data from the analytics firm Kpler, reported that China bought more than 80 percent of Iran's shipped oil in 2025 — and that Beijing appears unwilling to help. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington responded to Bessent by saying, "Regarding the Iran issue, sanctions and pressure do not help resolve the problem," and called for a diplomatic resolution, per Foreign Policy. Bessent's pitch to Beijing, quoted in the same report: "Keep in mind that the Chinese get 50 percent of their energy from inside the Gulf, so it would do them a big service to get with the program."

The AP noted China and India are both major buyers of Iranian oil, that nearly all of Iran's energy, financial and transportation sectors are already under U.S. sanctions, and that Trump's first-term maximum-pressure campaign repeatedly ended in waivers for countries that depended on Iranian crude.

The skepticism is not partisan. The Wall Street Journal's opinion page ran a piece Friday headlined "Trump's Iran Credibility Problem," asking whether the president will actually follow through on the new economic threats.

Analysts quoted by the AP split on the substance. Richard Goldberg of the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who ran Iran pressure efforts in Trump's first term, said last year's strikes on nuclear sites, this year's war and the naval blockade of Iranian ports have created conditions for capitulation that did not exist before — while cautioning that "we are in uncharted waters." Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group, said the campaign has only "hardened Iran's position," and that Iranian officials believe that even if they gave in, "Trump would move the goalposts and ask for more."

The chokepoint

Everything runs through Hormuz. Axios reported on Aug. 19, citing two U.S. officials, that the U.S. military has been running a nighttime shipping corridor through a southern channel along the coast of Oman, moving 15 to 20 tankers in and out of the strait each night — about 10 million barrels of oil a day, roughly half the pre-war volume.

By the U.S. Energy Information Administration's accounting, Hormuz normally carries about one-fifth of global oil and petroleum product consumption and about one-fifth of global LNG trade.