The Wrong End of the Telescope
China has neutralized its energy vulnerability, dulling Trump’s threat of secondary sanctions.
“Oil is worthless until it gets to a refinery.”—JJ Johnston, Market Vibes
The West’s fixation on using sanctions to achieve geopolitical goals is one of the great mysteries of modern strategy. Much like advocates of renewable energy, proponents of this blunt diplomatic tool view each failure not as a reason to reconsider, but as an enticement to double down with more of the same. The effectiveness of sanctions is consistently overestimated, the ability of targeted nations to insulate themselves is underestimated, and the potential for blowback onto the sanctioning countries themselves is largely ignored.
One might have expected the incoming administration, having witnessed the disastrous outcomes of its predecessor’s sanctions attempts, to pursue a different path. Alas, it appears that this particular folly transcends party lines:
“A key US Senate ally of President Donald Trump [Lindsey Graham] said he has the commitment of 72 colleagues for a bill that would enact ‘bone-crushing’ new sanctions on Russia and tariffs on countries that buy its oil, gas and other key products if Vladimir Putin doesn’t engage in serious negotiations to end the war in Ukraine…
The punishments would include a 500% tariff on imports from countries that buy Russian oil, petroleum products, natural gas or uranium, according to a draft of the bill seen by Bloomberg News. Other sanctions would also prohibit US citizens from buying Russian sovereign debt, according to the draft.”
President Trump himself followed up with similar threats on Truth Social, this time focusing on those who do business with Iran:
“ALERT: All purchases of Iranian oil, or petrochemical products, must stop, NOW! Any country or person who buys ANY AMOUNT of OIL or PETROCHEMICALS from Iran will be subject to, immediately, secondary sanctions. They will not be allowed to do business with the United States of America in any way, shape, or form. Thank you for your attention to this matter, PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP”
The target of Trump’s post is, of course, China, the world’s largest importer of crude by a wide margin, surpassing all of Europe combined. In March 2025, it received a remarkable 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) from Iran—nearly matching the 2.2 million bpd it sourced from Russia on average in 2024. Surely, if the threat of “bone-crushing” sanctions held any weight, this situation would be the ultimate proving ground.
Graham's logic, and that of his war-hungry colleagues, contains a fatal flaw: the assumption that countries slated to be brought to heel are oblivious to their vulnerabilities and have not worked to mitigate them. China, despite its reliance on foreign oil, has spent decades to ensure that any successful oil embargo would inflict at least as much pain on the rest of the world in tandem. It may surprise some, but we argue today that China has largely accomplished its objective. Let’s examine why.