LONDON — For nearly 50 years, Iran has been treated as a pariah, ranking among the world’s most sanctioned countries for its nuclear and weapons programs, its support for terrorism, human rights abuses and other factors.
But despite persistent efforts by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the UN Security Council to stifle Iran’s international trade and freeze assets, the country has managed to continue doing business with much of the world, an analysis by The New York Times shows.
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The nation has exchanged goods with more than 170 countries since 2019, even as international restrictions have fueled inflation, high unemployment and civil unrest.
Total trade has fallen, but the country has imported essential foods, electronics and auto parts, while selling oil, gas, building materials, specialty foods and thousands of other products. Sanctions have damaged the Iranian economy, but have not destroyed it.
“The expectation was that sanctions would have isolated Iran from global trade, but that is not entirely the case,” said Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, CEO of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, a London-based research organization. “Iran’s trade has become more complex over time in response to sanctions.”
The war with the United States and Israel clearly changed the country’s perspectives. Iran’s blockade of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has hampered its own ability to access critical goods and conduct trade.
Israeli and American missiles hit the country, destroying infrastructure including electricity facilities, transportation, factories, military bases and schools. The possibility of even more devastating damage looms if a two-week ceasefire does not hold.
Still, trade data from the last 30 years can offer clues about the adaptive capacity of the Islamic Republic’s economy of 94 million people. Its ability to adjust under the pressure of sanctions and other disruptions may indicate how it will work going forward.
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China has been Iran’s salvation
Getting accurate trade numbers is difficult. Most analysts distrust official government statistics, and Iran’s partners often omit or underestimate the value of commodity transactions.
Still, it is clear that China has assumed the role of Iran’s main trading partner, accounting for a growing share of Iranian imports and exports over the past two decades.
During the pandemic, Beijing promised to invest US$400 billion in the country over the coming decades in exchange for a steady supply of oil.
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In 2024, it purchased 90% of Iran’s oil exports, according to the International Energy Agency.
China also accounted for about a quarter of Iran’s non-oil exports from 2019 to 2024, according to data compiled by Harvard University’s Atlas of Economic Complexity, acquiring billions of dollars worth of Iranian chemicals and metals.
Payments are made in renminbi, the Chinese currency, avoiding the use of the dollar and the need to involve American banks, which are often the main entities used to help enforce sanctions.
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In contrast, China appears to supply almost 30% of the commodities Iran imports, selling everything from furniture to sunflower seeds.
There is another crucial layer of trade between countries that does not appear in official statistics. Both have resorted to a complex barter system that involves secret financing channels. Iran sends oil to China, and in return, state-backed Chinese construction companies build airports and other infrastructure.
This hidden trading system extends to other parts of the world, experts say, in part to avoid run-ins with sanctions.
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Parallel activity involves shell companies and intermediaries that hide the identity of real buyers, the use of non-Iranian banks, and diversions through other countries to hide Iran’s involvement.
Iran no longer depends solely on oil
Twenty years ago, oil accounted for almost 80% of Iran’s exports, but this share has declined over time as the economy has diversified.
The change began to accelerate when the United States, under President Barack Obama, imposed a new round of severe sanctions that put Iran in deep crisis.
“The Iranian economy only really started to suffer around 2012,” Batmanghelidj said. “The increase in trade between 2000 and 2012 was associated with rising standards of living and the growth of the Iranian middle class.”
The sanctions mainly targeted Iran’s oil trade and discouraged Western companies from doing business with Iranian counterparts.
This has led the country to develop more trade in other areas and with new partners, a pattern that continues, trade data shows.
Some sanctions were lifted after the nuclear deal between Iran and the United States in 2015. But since 2019, when President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions against companies doing business with Iran, the pattern has resumed.
During this period, Iran exported more than US$120 billion in non-oil commodities, according to Harvard data — a value approximately equivalent to the total exports of countries such as Costa Rica, Ecuador or Croatia.
Iran is favored by its access to several trade corridors, both land and sea. It borders seven countries, including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Turkey, and has ports on the Caspian Sea, as well as straddling one side of the Strait of Hormuz, which has been central to the current war.
Both Turkey and Iraq are important customers for Iranian products. Along with China, these three countries have accounted for more than half of Iran’s non-oil exports since 2019.
Kuwait is a major buyer of Iranian cement and sheep. Bulgaria, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan import large quantities of packaging material. Most of the saffron imported by Spain comes from Iran.
Increased internal production
One response to sanctions over the years has been to produce more domestically. The country has developed a broad industrial sector that manufactures automobiles, steel, iron, electronics and pharmaceutical products, in addition to a strong food sector.
“They made a deliberate effort to be self-reliant,” said Kislaya Prasad, academic director of the Center for Global Business at the University of Maryland.
Sanctions have made it much more difficult for Iran to import materials needed for production, such as machinery and spare parts.
European countries represented more than half of Iranian imports recorded in the mid-1990s. Today, they account for less than 20%.
The UAE provides electronics; India sends large quantities of rice; and Brazil sells soybeans and corn to Iran.
c.2026 The New York Times Company
