美制裁伊朗遇阻：中国成关键变量与盟友协调难题

This is a country, Iran, that has been heavily sanctioned, is heavily sanctioned, has been for such a long period of time here. Yes. There's the tease of more announcements to come. But but as you think this through, what more is there that The US could do at this point in time to kind of tighten the economic vice on Iran? You know, David, that's a excellent question. And there there are things that they can do, and we'll hear from Bessent tomorrow about what those are.

But each one of them pulls another thread that could undo it or make it worse for The United States. I mean, as you said, Iran has been under crushing sanctions for more than forty years since the revolution. And they have, and Trump was right sort of in describing their economic conditions, but big surprise, overstated it a bit. It is not 350% inflation, but it is around 80% inflation. There are 2,200 sanctions on them.

I mean, there's they're isolated on the world. I mean, it's it's not a great situation for them. So what else can Trump do? He can go after their major trading partners. The only trouble with that is their major trading partner is China, who is under no has no problem retaliating on The United States in terms of tariffs or other economic pressure, export controls, you know, because The US buys so much from China. And China buys 90% of Iran's oil.

So that's who you really have to go after if you want to change this. But neither China nor Iran are really listening to The United States or necessarily afraid of them. I mean, Iran just isn't showing any signs of capitulating at this point. I also wonder about the enforcement even if there really was the effort from the White House to go after China or or third parties for buying Iranian oil. When it comes to China, to your point, the the it's not someone Trump has wanted to take on head on.

And I just wonder, first of all, if there is a mechanism to sufficiently enforce that, if The US has the capacity for it, and if there is the will for that from the White House, especially given Xi's upcoming visit. Well, you hit on it, Christine. I mean, Trump wants the visit with, Xi Jinping this fall to go very well. You know, he likes to show off his relationships with with leaders around the world, especially those that aren't, you know, the most popular kids at the cafeteria.

So Story of my life, Wendy. Story of my life. Me too. So the so, you know, the he wants it to go well. I don't really know how he's going to to balance that. The other point is that Bessent, you know, calls this the greatest coordinated economic, you know, program in the history of the world. And Trump said in that through social post, you know, come on, allies. Let's go. Let's let's all do this together. But this is the same sort of, sudden demands.

You know, I heard the Canadian official, Christine Freeland, say a few minutes ago that Trump doesn't want allies. He wants vassals. And that was a a excellent point because, you know, when The US and Israel started bombing Iran back in February, it was like they were asking all the allies in Europe, you know, come on, join us. But they didn't know what was gonna happen. They had gotten, you know, a small heads up request to use their bases.

And and they their response, I think, reasonably was, wait a minute. What are you getting us into? And I think that's the same thing here. We haven't heard about many much coordination discussion going on with allies who might be able to pile on to this Iranian thing. You know, the Bushes, for whatever you think about the Bushes presidencies, they were very good at building international coalitions to get things done, and Trump hasn't really shown that skill.

I wanna go back to that, clip we played of the president talking about military options still being on the table. There's been kind of an interesting debate over the course of the last week centering on how much the administration, particularly Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary has talked about economic warfare versus military warfare. And and I think that there's a school of thought that by doing that, you're kind of giving carte blanche to Iran to do more.

That that if that seems to be The US's focus right now. They're they're not investing in kind of more strikes, more military action. Maybe that opens the door for Iran going back down that route. I wonder how you see that dynamic playing out here, Wendy. Well, that's certainly a risk, David. I mean, the in Iran's sort of unusual power structure, their their elite military, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, those guys are getting paid.

Those guys are pretty much running the war. And we can see that what this might do is then their attitude is, well, fine. Then we'll just the pressure that we'll put on since they're unable to put economic pressure on The US or its Gulf allies is to continue to bomb them. Is you know, the navy is not I I don't know between their navy or their air force, but their military is clearly not destroyed. They clearly still have munitions.

They clearly still have thousands of cheap drones that they can send across the Gulf. And so, yeah, the the IRGC can just keep doing what it wants. This also doesn't put pressure on Iran to open the Strait Of Hormuz for free traffic as it always was. Now they might be incentivized to really insist on that toll that they've been talking to Oman about. Excuse me. And that, of course, would be anathema to The United States.

Wendy, I wanna play some sound from the president from a rally Friday night for the late senator Lindsey Graham's sister, senator Darlene Graham, but it is on what we're just talking about. And they wanna make a deal so badly. We don't even know if we want because I view the Strait Of Hormuz as an American territory right now. It's an American territory. And the president followed up on True Social, with a map of the Strait Of Hormuz labeling it US territory.

This cannot be helping, diplomatic negotiations. But we were just talking about Canada as the fifty first state. We're gonna talk later, in the show about another country that has had overtures in the White House about being part of America. What is this expansionist bent with the White House, and is there strategy behind it? This cannot be helping with negotiations if there even are any real negotiations happening right now.

No. I think this is just, you know, Trump's sort of signature braggadocio. And if if Iran was so desperate for a deal, they would be at a table trying to make a deal. Right? And Pakistan and other allies have been, you know, really trying to get The US and Iran back to a table. They've been talking to Whitcoff and Kushner and all these envoys. And, you know, right now, the foreign minister of Basagratz says that there is he has no interest in talking to The United States.

So I don't know where that notion comes from. I think this is just Trump trying to, as one of my favorite old governors used to say, Ann Richards of Texas, you know, I think he's trying to put lipstick on a pig. He's trying to make this unpopular, war with no end in sight, sound better than it is at a political rally for the midterms when the Republicans who have backed this war with Trump are looking like they're gonna lose.

Christine, I said Wendy was joining us from our DC bureau, but for our our listeners, she's in a much more beautifully decorated space than that. She's she's joining us from home. Wendy, I I'm gonna pause it. That's because you wanted to steer clear of Constitution Avenue because of this Grand Prix that's happening in Washington DC this week. And before we let you go, talk to us a bit about that, how that fits into this, yes, celebration, commemoration, the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, but the way in which president Trump has kind of charted out his own version of that, first involving the UFC and now here, fast cars in the nation's capital.

Right. Trump has this incredibly, I don't know wh

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