Trump’s Iran sanctions have a China problem

In late August, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared an “economic D-Day” against Iran, promising “the single greatest financial offensive ever marshaled against an adversary.” The D-Day analogy is an odd one for a campaign whose success ultimately depends on China, an American ally at Normandy but a strategic rival today. For the Trump administration’s “zero-leakage” policy to succeed, foreign financial institutions would need to monitor and police their own customers. And there is no way to achieve the “total isolation” of the Iranian regime without Chinese banks doing much of the hard work of sanctions enforcement. Before the closure…