Chinese state media went further. An editorial cartoon in China News portrayed the Statue of Liberty as a drug user with needles protruding from one arm, describing Washington’s use of sanctions as “an addiction.”

The confrontational reaction underscored a dilemma for the Trump administration. Beijing has long defied American sanctions and continued to buy Iranian oil. At the same time, China supplied Tehran with raw materials and technology that support its economy and military. Yet nearly six months into a war with Iran, the United States has shown little appetite for opening another economic front with an increasingly retaliatory China.

The timing is particularly delicate. China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, is expected to travel to the United States next month to meet with President Trump to continue talks aimed at stabilizing the countries’ relationship.

On Monday, when he was asked why the administration had not targeted Chinese banks, Mr. Bessent said only that “quiet diplomacy” was the best form of engagement. He did vow at one point to still penalize a large international financial institution, though he did not offer specifics. To some analysts, Mr. Bessent’s failure to call out China amounted to a tacit acknowledgment that preserving the truce with China may, for now, outweigh the benefits of taking more aggressive action against Iran.

Washington “has been extremely reluctant to go after China,” said Daniel Tannebaum, a Treasury Department official during the George W. Bush administration and now a partner at Oliver Wyman, a consulting firm. “I don’t think that changes today, especially at a time when China has more leverage than the United States does.”

For decades, the United States has exploited its central position in the global financial system to isolate adversaries like Iran and North Korea, threatening to exclude companies and banks from conducting transactions in dollars if they do business with sanctioned entities. Successive rounds of sanctions have largely left Iran cut off from the global financial system, but they have failed to incapacitate its economy.

But more recently, China has shown it is willing to use its own economic choke points. During the bruising trade war of the past year, Beijing restricted access to critical minerals and used its control over supply chains against American companies as leverage.

China agreed last year to temporarily postpone controls on exports of rare-earth minerals as part of a thaw in relations with the United States. That one-year reprieve is set to lapse weeks after Mr. Xi and Mr. Trump are scheduled to meet.

That leverage has raised the potential cost of confronting Beijing over Iran, even as China has become critical to Tehran’s ability to withstand American pressure.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/business/us-bessent-china-iran.html