Iran has built a more complex trade system under years of Western sanctions, relying increasingly on China, barter arrangements, and covert financing channels that help it keep goods moving even as formal restrictions target its oil exports, banking access, and foreign trade, according to new reporting by The New York Times.

An NYT investigation found that Iran has exchanged goods with more than 170 countries since 2019 despite sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union, Britain, and the United Nations. Overall trade has fallen and the economy has been strained by inflation, unemployment, and unrest, but Tehran has continued importing food, electronics, and auto parts while exporting oil, gas, construction materials, specialty foods, and other products.

The most important pillar of that system is China, the Times said. Beijing has become Iran’s primary trading partner and bought 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports in 2024, while also taking roughly a quarter of its non-oil exports between 2019 and 2024. Payments are made in renminbi rather than dollars, the newspaper said, reducing the need to route transactions through American banks that often play a central role in sanctions enforcement. 

Beyond recorded trade, the Times described what it called a crucial hidden layer of commerce between Iran and China: a barter system backed by secret financing channels. Under that arrangement, Iran ships oil to China and Chinese state-backed construction companies build airports and other infrastructure in return, the report said. 

The same concealed trade methods extend beyond China and are designed in part to avoid sanctions exposure. Those methods include shell companies and frontmen to disguise the true counterparties, the use of non-Iranian banks, and routing goods or payments through third countries to obscure Iran’s role in a transaction, according to the newspaper. 

Sanctions pressure has also pushed Iran to diversify away from its historic dependence on oil. Petroleum once accounted for nearly 80 percent of exports, but the share has fallen over time as Iran expanded trade in chemicals, metals, cement, agricultural products, and other non-petroleum goods. Since 2019, Iran has exported more than $120 billion in non-petroleum commodities, according to data cited by the Times. 

Read more at The New York Times