How China and Russia could hobble Trump’s plans to isolate Iran

United States President Donald Trump has threatened to financially punish any country providing an economic “lifeline” to Iran, as he declared an “economic D-Day” against Tehran.

The threat, six months into the US’s costly conflict with Iran, is Trump’s latest attempt to wield US economic power to achieve his foreign policy objectives, after a series of damaging trade wars earlier in his second term in office.

But Trump’s leverage over China and Russia, two important trade partners with Iran, is limited, analysts say. Russia is already under sweeping US sanctions and operates largely outside the US-led economic framework. China, meanwhile, has repeatedly shown it is willing to ignore US sanctions when doing so serves its own economic interests.

Paul Musgrave, an associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera that “it is going to be very difficult” for Trump to pull off his pressure campaign effectively.

“Trump is trying to unilaterally assert the kind of coordinated sanctions that traditionally has taken multilateral coordination, and that means getting on board China, Russia, the P5 of the UN Security Council,” Musgrave said, referring to the five permanent members of the UNSC.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday, the US president said his campaign against Iran would be “ the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country”.

In addition, he said there would be “tremendous economic consequences” for countries that help Iran subvert US sanctions, citing methods such as “oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries [and] front companies”.

Earlier the same day, the United Arab Emirates, which Iran has long relied on for critical imports and access to commercial markets, announced an indefinite trade embargo on Tehran , after accusing Iran’s military of launching two ballistic missiles at its territory.