US President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his series of warnings against Iran following the collapse of peace talks in Islamabad, while also issuing a sharp message to China. Trump’s remarks came in response to reports citing US intelligence that Beijing may be preparing to send weapons to Iran during a fragile two-week ceasefire that began last Wednesday.
“I doubt they would do that. but if we catch them doing that, they get a 50% tariff, which is a staggering amount.” Trump told Fox News.
President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit China next month for talks with President Xi Jinping.
While his warning applies broadly to all countries, Trump specifically singled out China in response to a question about a CNN report published on Saturday. The report, citing three unnamed sources familiar with latest US intelligence assessments, claimed that Beijing is preparing to supply advanced air defence systems to Iran in coming weeks.
Meanwhile, Trump also offered to sell crude oil to China, both from home and from Venezuela, a country, quasi-operated by US after “seizing”, or effectively capturing, President Nicolas Maduro earlier this year.
“China can send their ships to us, to Venezuela. We have a lot of overcapacity, and we’ll probably sell [oil] for even less money [than Iran],” he said.
Many of Trump’s tariffs, imposed on countries including India, Brazil, China, and even allies such as Canada, have already been ruled legally invalid by the US Supreme Court.
Despite this, he has continued to explore and employ alternative methods to bypass Congress in order to impose such duties for geopolitical advantage.
In the case of China, tariffs had risen to as high as 125% before the Supreme Court struck down his emergency law-based measures in February 2026. As negotiations between the two sides began, the rate was reduced to around 30%. Following the court’s ruling, Trump moved to replace the previous tariffs with temporary ones under a different trade law, bringing the current rate to approximately 10–15%.
