Iran has a fleet of about 143 tankers capable of transporting about 102 million barrels of crude oil and 11.8 million barrels of liquid natural gas, worth a total of more than $7.7 billion, at any time    

Iran, whose main source of income was oil, understood during the final year of Trump's term that it needed to secure a cash flow and to bring food to its hungry citizens. The Iranian regime started to take action to counter the American sanctions, and in 2019 it started to use its fleet of oil tankers for smuggling.     

Iran has a fleet of about 143 tankers capable of transporting about 102 million barrels of crude oil and 11.8 million barrels of liquid natural gas, worth a total of more than $7.7 billion, at any time. Using its fleet of tankers, Iran started to secretly transport oil to China, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Lebanon and Venezuela.       

What is China's role in the Iranian effort? 

For a number of decades, China has seen Iran as a partner in implementation of its Belt and Road Initiative, a strategy that the general secretary of the Chinese communist party has been leading since September 2013. China has spent over $300 billion on the strategy since 2013, and is expected to spend hundreds of billions more during the coming decade. 

For that reason, China renewed the strategic agreement between the two countries. The new agreement was signed in 2019, promising China a more significant foothold in Iran, with control over intelligence collection in the country as well as additional resources for China's use, such as the Iranian electricity and computer systems that are being operated to mine cryptocurrency for China.     

The Iranian cat-and-mouse game, with the assistance and support of China, enables Iran to maintain its alternate economy and to ignore the American sanctions, especially under the weak administration of Joe Biden. Thus Iran has succeeded in streaming large amounts of money into its coffers, reviving its economy and continuing its race to build offensive capabilities and to complete its nuclear program, which it is so close to doing.