The Impact of Sanctions on Iran-China Trade Interactions: Political Risks and Financial Flexibility

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Fatemeh Mahrough ¹

Aboalghasem Shahriari ²

Fatemeh Sanisel ³

¹ 1- Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.

² Visiting Professor, Department of Political Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

³ Master’s degree in political science, Department of Political Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.

10.22067/ips.2026.96008.1018

Abstract

Imposing sanctions is a tool to increase pressure on countries' political risk, an issue the United States has been implementing especially since 2018, with its unilateral sanctions against Iran. The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of sanctions on trade with China and identify ways to improve them. A review of the time series of Iran-China trade from 2000 to 2021 shows that although trade transactions were continuous during the period of sanctions before 2018, they fluctuated in response to sanctions, and trade fell to its lowest level in 2018. The study of existing strategies for maintaining the level of Iran-China exchanges indicates that the development of Iran's export portfolio, especially in the field of petrochemical products, along with Iran's membership in BRICS and the use of existing processes in this organization for de-dollarization, are the facilities available to develop Iran's exchanges under sanctions.

Keywords

Iran

China

Sanctions

De-dollarization

BRICS

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