How the U.S. Drove Iran and China Into a Tighter Embrace

Since its Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran’s foreign policy motto has been “neither East nor West,” based on first Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s warning to avoid dependence on outsiders. Under the pressure of U.S. measures aimed at crippling its economy, however, Iran has grown ever closer to America’s principal rival, China, and vice versa. The two are said to be contemplating a 25-year strategic partnership.

The roots of a stronger alliance were planted in 2016, when Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited Iran a year after it agreed to limits on its nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of related sanctions by world powers including China. In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement, arguing he could get a better deal out of Iran. The U.S. began reimposing old sanctions and adding new ones, contributing to an economic contraction in Iran that the International Monetary Fund projects will reach 6% this year. Iranian officials initially looked to Europe to deliver the trade and investment benefits they’d expected from the nuclear deal, but European entities for the most part have balked, unwilling to risk violating U.S. secondary sanctions. China, on the other hand, is the only country that’s continued to purchase Iranian crude, and it is dangling the prospect of investments across Iran’s economy.