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ANALYSIS: Trump Imposes Sanctions on China and Wants to Visit It — Cynicism as Foreign Policy

Jacques Pj Provost

2026-06-20 17:10:58

One refinery, 40 shipowners, an invisible network

The sanctioned refinery processes Iranian oil transported via bypass routes—ships that turn off their AIS transponders off the coast of Oman, transship their cargo on the high seas, and arrive in China flying flags of convenience with falsified cargo manifests. This is nothing new. It is international trade in the era of sanctions. In 2025, China imported an average of 1.5 million barrels of Iranian oil per day—accounting for the bulk of Tehran’s exports—despite the formal existence of U.S. sanctions since 2018.

The 40 shipping entities targeted on April 24 represent only a fraction of this network. For every sanctioned company, three others already exist, created the previous week under different names, in different jurisdictions, with different nominal directors. It’s a game of whack-a-mole that Washington has been playing for seven years without ever winning—and without ever stopping, because the game itself is the message, not the result.

“Maximum pressure” against Iran is a phrase that sounds good at a press conference. In reality, it’s a sieve that everyone is funding while pretending to fix it.

Who Really Pays the Price for the Sanctions

The shareholders of the sanctioned refinery—some of whom are investment funds that probably don’t even know exactly what they own—will lose money. The sailors from the 40 shipping companies targeted, many of whom are Pakistani, Bangladeshi, or Filipino nationals paid $800 a month to crew ghost oil tankers, will lose their jobs. The Iranian engineers who oversee extraction at the Kharg fields, however, will continue to work—because other refineries, other shipowners, and other supply chains will take over before the end of the month.

And yet, the sanctions were presented on April 24 as a victory. A statement from the U.S. Treasury describes them as a “decisive blow” against the financing of Iran’s destabilizing activities. This statement was drafted by officials who know full well that in six weeks, the network will be rebuilt. They know this because they have watched the last six years unfold in exactly this way.

Trump in Beijing: The Dream of a Photo and the Real Obstacles

A 71.5% probability of a visit—and it’s declining

On Polymarket, the blockchain-based prediction market platform, $71,500 in bets have been placed on the question: “Will Trump visit China before May 31, 2026?” On April 23, the probability stood at 76%. On April 24, following the sanctions, it dropped to 71.5%. This isn’t a sharp drop—it’s a gradual decline. A subtle signal. The kind of signal that markets pick up on before diplomats publicly acknowledge it.

As of April 30—six days after the sanctions were announced—the probability of a Trump visit to China stood at 0.5%. In other words: impossible. Even the most optimistic speculators regarding a thaw in U.S.-China relations no longer believe it will happen in the short term. The contract for June 2026 remains at 81%—the markets aren’t saying the visit will never take place; they’re saying it will be postponed again. And again. And again.

There is something quite revealing about the fact that it is cryptocurrency traders who are most accurately gauging the true state of Sino-American relations—while diplomats pretend that everything is under control.

Xi Jinping has nothing to gain from letting Trump in too soon

From Beijing’s perspective, a visit by Trump to China is not a gift—it’s a concession. Hosting him amounts to legitimizing his stance, providing him with the imagery of a return to normalcy that his electorate will interpret as a personal victory, and appearing weak in the eyes of Chinese public opinion, which is becoming increasingly nationalistic. It is in Xi Jinping’s best interest to keep Trump waiting—long enough for conditions to become favorable, and courteously enough not to derail the trade negotiations that have been ongoing since the April 2025 tariff truce agreement.

This isn’t bad faith. It’s basic strategy. Meanwhile, Washington is sanctioning Chinese refineries on Thursday and sending trade envoys to Shanghai on Monday. And no one in the administration seems to see the absurdity of it all—or rather, everyone sees it, but no one has any interest in pointing it out.

The "maximum pressure" campaign—pressure on whom?

Tehran is exporting more oil than in 2018

In 2018, when Trump launched his first “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran by unilaterally withdrawing from the Vienna nuclear agreement, Iranian oil exports fell to about 300,000 barrels per day—their lowest level in decades. By 2025, they had reached 1.5 million barrels per day. Over the course of seven years, “maximum pressure” produced a result inversely proportional to its name.

It’s not that sanctions never work—it’s that they work only when they are applied in a coordinated manner by an international coalition. When the United States acts alone, it creates business opportunities for all those not subject to its jurisdiction. China, Russia, and India—three countries that together account for more than 40% of global oil consumption—have systematically taken advantage of the price gap created by U.S. sanctions. Iranian oil sells at a discount of $5 to $10 per barrel compared to the market price. It’s a windfall that Beijing cashes in on every day.

“Maximum pressure” is perhaps the most aptly named foreign policy of recent history—provided one asks oneself on whom this pressure is actually being exerted.

Iran-China: A Structural Relationship Strengthened by Sanctions

On March 27, 2021, Iran and China signed a 25-year comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement—$400 billion in Chinese investments in Iran in exchange for preferential oil supplies. This is the framework within which these transactions take place. Imposing sanctions on a refinery on April 24, 2026, is merely scratching the surface of an agreement that was signed, ratified, and implemented five years ago. The 40 maritime entities targeted that day are replaceable cogs in a structural machine.

And yet, the Trump administration presents each sanction as if it were a decisive break. As if this move, at last, were going to shatter the Tehran-Beijing axis. This rhetoric is aimed at the American public, not at Iranian or Chinese decision-makers. The latter read the same export statistics as Wall Street analysts. They know that nothing has fundamentally changed.

The May 2025 Trade Agreement — A Truce That Doesn't Feel Like a Truce

A 115-day break—and then what?

On May 12, 2025, in Geneva, the U.S. and Chinese delegations announced a trade truce: a temporary reduction in U.S. tariffs from 145% to 30% and a suspension of Chinese tariffs from 125% to 10%, for a period of 90 days. Those 90 days turned into 115, then into a de facto situation where the two countries are negotiating without a clear framework. The financial markets cheered in May 2025. In April 2026, they’re betting on Polymarket to see if Trump will be in Beijing before June.

This is not a resolution. It is a suspension of hostilities. The distinction is crucial. A suspension of hostilities means that each side maintains its position, builds up its arguments, and waits for the right moment to resume the pressure. The sanctions of April 24 are precisely this kind of move—technically justified by Iranian policy, but diplomatically devastating for the bilateral agenda.

A trade truce between the world’s two largest economies that results in sanctions right in the middle of negotiations is not a truce. It’s a trade cold war with coffee breaks.

U.S. companies caught in the crossfire

Apple still manufactures 90% of its iPhones in China. Nvidia still sells—despite restrictions—modified versions of its A100 chips on the Asian market. Boeing is still waiting for China to honor its orders for 737 MAX aircraft, which have been on hold since the trade war began. These companies cannot afford for U.S.-China relations to collapse. They are quietly lobbying for Trump’s visit to Beijing to take place—because a photo of Trump and Xi shaking hands is worth billions in market confidence.

But neither can they publicly state that they oppose sanctions against Iran or against Chinese entities involved in this trade. So they remain silent. They fund both parties in Congress. They send their executives to Washington and Shanghai in the same quarter. And they hope that the two governments will reach an agreement before the next round of sanctions is imposed.

The prediction market says what diplomats don't

$54,216 in 24 hours over a diplomatic issue

In 24 hours on April 24, 2026, $54,216 in USDC stablecoins were traded on three Polymarket markets related to Trump’s visit to China. $45,817 was traded on the “before May 31” contract alone. This isn’t a large volume for prediction markets—but it is a significant volume for such a specific diplomatic issue, so soon after an announcement of sanctions.

What these figures reveal is that traders—likely hedge funds, family offices, and global macro desks—are using these markets to hedge positions in the dollar, the yuan, oil, and tech stocks. When the probability of a Trump-Xi meeting drops by 4.5 points in 24 hours, it’s a signal that professionals factor into their geopolitical risk models. Diplomats communicate through press releases. Markets communicate through prices.

The fact that cryptocurrency traders measure the state of Sino-American relations in real time with greater precision than most geopolitical editorials is, in itself, telling about the state of international journalism.

The 28-cent bet

On the contract “Trump visits China before June 30, 2026,” a YES share costs 28 cents and pays out $1 if the event occurs. That’s a return of 3.57 times the stake. For this bet to be profitable, Trump and Xi must reach a diplomatic agreement despite the sanctions, despite accusations of AI technology theft, and despite the dispute over the Iranian oil tanker that Beijing refused to recognize as such on April 13, 2026. One must believe that the two governments can “compartmentalize”—separate the contentious issues from the broader bilateral agenda.

That’s the term geopolitical analysts use: “compartmentalize.” It’s a word that sounds professional but actually means: pretending that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Washington imposes sanctions, and down the hall, it negotiates. Beijing protests, and across from the Forbidden City, it orders pandas. If the markets—which are 81% certain this will happen by June—are right, it seems that both governments have become experts in institutional schizophrenia.

Iran in all this — the third player we tend to overlook

Tehran is watching the Sino-American dispute with satisfaction

While Washington and Beijing trade sanctions and pandas, Tehran is raking in 1.5 million barrels per day at premium prices. The Islamic Republic is not a passive victim of this geopolitical situation—it is an active beneficiary. Khamenei is 85 years old. The Revolutionary Guards control 40% of the Iranian economy. And Iran’s nuclear program, according to the IAEA’s latest assessments from October 2025, has accumulated enough 60% enriched uranium to build several warheads in a matter of weeks if the political decision were made.

That is the result of seven years of “maximum pressure.” Not a weakened Iran, but an Iran on the threshold of nuclear capability, financed by China, diplomatically protected by Russia, and resilient enough to absorb additional sanctions without altering its course. The refinery sanctioned on April 24 will be replaced. The Iranian nuclear program, however, cannot be sanctioned.

We sanction what we can see. We let what we choose not to look at flourish.

The Parallel Nuclear Negotiations—Total Absurdity

On April 12, 2026, U.S. and Iranian representatives met in Muscat, Oman, for indirect negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program—the first since the collapse of the Vienna talks in 2022. These negotiations are taking place at the same time as the April 24 sanctions. The same U.S. government that is sanctioning 40 entities linked to Iran’s oil industry is sending emissaries to discuss a possible nuclear deal with Tehran.

How can Iran negotiate in good faith with a partner that is sanctioning it at the very same time it is extending a hand of friendship? The answer is that it isn’t—not really. The Muscat negotiations are a diplomatic alibi, a way for each side to tell its allies that it is “trying.” Meanwhile, the centrifuges are spinning at Natanz. They couldn’t care less about Polymarket’s schedule.

European allies—absent from the picture, but present in the aftermath

Paris, Berlin, and London are watching without taking action

The European Union has its own sanctions against Iran—but they do not include extraterritorial measures targeting Chinese companies. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—members of the P5+1 that negotiated the 2015 Vienna Agreement—are spectators to a U.S. policy they did not choose and whose effects they are bearing. Every escalation between Washington and Beijing weakens Europe’s semiconductor supply chain. Every U.S. sanction against Chinese entities creates a risk of retaliation against European exports to China.

In 2025, European exports to China totaled 283 billion euros. Germany alone exported goods worth 97 billion. These figures are not found in U.S. Treasury press releases. They are found in the balance sheets of German chemical, automotive, and machine tool companies that watch as Washington sanctions Beijing and silently calculate the cost of this unsolicited transatlantic solidarity.

Europe is the only player in this crisis that stands to lose on all fronts simultaneously—and yet continues to speak of “transatlantic coordination” as if it were still an operational reality.

And yet, no one is saying no to Washington

And yet, no European government has publicly criticized the April 24 sanctions against Chinese entities linked to Iranian oil. Paris commented on “the ongoing tensions” in a one-sentence statement. Berlin said nothing. London expressed its “support for nonproliferation efforts.” This unanimous silence is news in itself. The Europeans have learned—since the sanctions against Russia in 2022, since the sanctions against Huawei in 2019—that challenging U.S. sanctions policy costs more than complying with it in silence.

So they remain silent. And the machine keeps running. And the bills keep coming. And yet, they call it a partnership.

What This Day, April 24, Reveals About the Structure of American Power

The Treasury imposes sanctions, the White House negotiates—no one is coordinating

The April 24 sanctions were decided by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)—an agency that operates under its own legal framework, with its own teams of analysts and its own timeline. OFAC does not hold diplomatic coordination meetings with the National Security Council before announcing sanctions. This is structural. It is intentional. It is a constant source of diplomatic discord.

The result: the U.S. Treasury sanctions a Chinese refinery on the very same day that the White House trade team is trying to restart tariff negotiations with Beijing. These two contradictory signals arrive simultaneously on the desks of Chinese diplomats. They cannot treat both as consistent, because they are not. So they treat both as provocations—and they wait.

The greatest threat to U.S. foreign policy is not China, nor Iran, nor Russia. It is the fact that the various agencies in Washington do not communicate with one another—and that everyone knows this except, apparently, those who should be acting on it.

The Paradox of “Maximum Pressure” in a Multipolar World

“Maximum pressure” as a doctrine rests on one premise: the United States controls enough of the global economy that its sanctions can inflict irreversible pain. This premise was true in 2001. It is partially false in 2026. The global financial system has partially de-dollarized—not radically, not irreversibly, but enough for China, India, Russia, and Iran to trade among themselves in yuan, rubles, and rupees, without going through the SWIFT system controlled by Washington.

Every new unilateral U.S. sanction accelerates this process. The 40 entities targeted on April 24 will seek alternatives to the dollar. They will find them. Not immediately, not perfectly—but they will find them. And in ten years, when a historian writes about the decline of U.S. financial dominance, he will cite these types of sanctions as one of the causes.

Conclusion: The visit may not take place—but that's not the real problem

Whether Trump goes to Beijing or not, the situation remains the same

Whether Trump visits China in May, June, or not at all in 2026 is not the central issue. The central issue is that the world’s two largest economies are engaged in a structural competition that neither diplomatic photo ops, nor pandas, nor prediction markets can resolve. The April 24 sanctions are a symptom, not a cause. The cause runs deeper: two incompatible political systems, two irreconcilable visions of the world order, and two economies that need each other yet harbor a visceral distrust of one another.

In this context, a visit by Trump to Beijing would be, at best, a painkiller. It would temporarily ease the markets’ pain, offer a few weeks of rhetorical détente, and allow both governments to announce “significant progress” in carefully worded, empty press releases. Then another refinery would be sanctioned. Another Iranian ship would be intercepted. Another accusation of technology theft would be leveled. And the odds on Polymarket would slide downward once again.

The real question isn’t whether Trump will be in Beijing by May 31. It’s whether anyone, anywhere in these two capitals, has a plan for the next ten years—or whether everyone is simply playing a game of managing the next week.

The Human Cost of Episodic Geopolitics

While Washington and Beijing play chess against a backdrop of pandas and sanctions, there are people working on these sanctioned ships. Sailors. Refinery engineers. Freight agents. Accountants in offices in Dubai and Singapore who manage the transactions of these 40 sanctioned entities. These people are not criminals—they work in an industry their governments have encouraged, within legal frameworks from their perspective, for companies that paid their salaries.

They will lose their jobs. Some will not find equivalent work. Their names will not appear in any U.S. Treasury press release. There will be no press conference for them. They will not be mentioned in geopolitical analyses. They will simply be the collateral damage of “maximum pressure”—pressure that, let us remember, is not being applied to the centrifuges in Natanz, but to the dockworkers in Zhoushan.

The cynicism of this policy lies in the fact that it calls itself “maximum” while primarily striking those with the least power—and systematically sparing those with too much.

What the markets cannot yet calculate

Polymarket can calculate the probability of a presidential visit. It cannot calculate the cost of a decade of Sino-American relations marked by contradictory episodes. They cannot put a price on the gradual erosion of U.S. credibility in the Global South—those 60 countries that watch Washington sanction China while asking them to vote with the United States at the UN, and who are doing their own calculations.

And yet, these calculations are being made. In Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia—anywhere governments must choose between their trade relations with Beijing and their security commitments to Washington. Every unilateral U.S. sanction reinforces the Chinese argument that the United States uses the dollar as a weapon and that dependence on the U.S. financial system is a geopolitical risk.