What did Donald Trump do today?
He threatened China with economic sanctions as softly and unconvincingly as possible.
Trump's recent attempt to find an off-ramp from the Iran war he started has focused on economic coercion. In large part that's because he has few if any military options left: the United States military is shockingly low on missiles and defensive interceptors after six months of use against cheap, low-tech attacks from Iran.
One problem with that approach, as many have noted, is that it's not really possible to increase sanctions on Iran any higher than they already are, or have been for most of the last 50 years. Trump's promised "Economic D-Day," which would supposedly target any country doing business with Iran, is not meaningfully different from what is already in place.
The other problem is that Iran's largest trading partner is China, and sanctioning China would be inviting retaliation from the world's largest economy. China has paid lip service to international sanctions on Iran, but is Iran's largest customer for oil. China, which supplies weapons to Iran, also benefits from the ongoing economic havoc and degradation of military readiness that Trump's war is inflicting on the United States.
Trump was asked today about why he hadn't sanctioned the Chinese banks involved in that trade, to which he responded, "Who says I'm not?"
The answer is that Trump's Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, says he isn't. Bessent was asked a similar question earlier this week, about why he hadn't simply ordered sanctions immediately against countries that traded with Iran. Clearly exasperated, Bessent snapped, "Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?"
There's another reason Trump is unlikely to cross China on this issue. President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Washington in September. Xi, along with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un, is one of a number of authoritarian rulers that Trump treats with awe and respect he otherwise never shows anyone. He's openly praised Xi for engineering a lifetime dictatorship over the Chinese government. More recently, Trump went to extraordinary lengths—and taxpayer expense—to get an extremely ornate helipad constructed on White House grounds in time for Xi's visit. (Actually, he did that twice—one on an "emergency" basis, and then a second time even faster when the first attempt wasn't fancy enough for him and had to be demolished.)
Trump's timid saber-rattling on China sanctions came on the same day that he demonstrated a more realistic example of his power to economically punish important US trading partners, by ceremonially "renaming" a lake to insult Canada.
Why does this matter?
- Making threats everyone knows are empty only advertises your weakness, and a competent president would have learned that by now.