Iran’s President Says Oil Money in China Is ‘Blocked,’ Unable to Be Withdrawn or Sent Abroad

NEW YORK — Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said this week that revenues from oil and goods sold to China are blocked inside Chinese accounts, leaving Tehran unable to withdraw the funds or transfer them elsewhere.

The remarks came in an exclusive interview with Fox News host Bret Baier on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Asked whether Beijing was financing Iran’s war effort, Pezeshkian replied:

“One of the problems that we face is that our money in China is blocked. We can’t even get our own money out of a country to which we have supplied goods, let alone use those funds to pay someone else in another corner of the world.”

He made the point while denying that Iran was using those proceeds to fund armed groups across the region. Iranian state media later repeated the same account of the interview.

Why the money is hard to move

China remains Iran’s dominant oil customer, taking more than 80 percent of Iran’s seaborne crude in 2025, according to commodity-tracking data. Estimates of Iranian funds trapped or tightly restricted in China range from about $20 billion to $50 billion, part of a larger pool of overseas assets Tehran says exceeds $100 billion. Independent assessments put the global total lower.

The blockage is not a sudden freeze announced this week. After the United States reimposed sanctions in 2018, most Iranian oil payments could no longer clear through the dollar system. Chinese commercial banks have generally refused to convert large yuan balances into hard currency or send them abroad, fearing U.S. secondary sanctions. Iran’s listing on the Financial Action Task Force’s high-risk blacklist adds another compliance barrier for any bank asked to move the money to a third country.

In practice, much of the oil trade has shifted into restricted channels: yuan deposits in designated Chinese accounts, and barter-style arrangements in which proceeds pay for Chinese goods, machinery, or infrastructure work inside Iran rather than cash Iran can spend freely. Reuters and the Wall Street Journal have reported that some of those channels have also been used to finance Chinese-supplied goods and projects, including items with military use. Tehran still cannot treat the balances as freely transferable reserves.

What the comment reveals

Pezeshkian’s admission undercuts a frequent talking point that Iran and China have built a seamless, sanctions-proof financial partnership. Oil still flows east, often at a discount and through opaque shipping. The cash does not flow back with the same ease.

The timing added to the political sting. Pezeshkian spoke as Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Washington for talks with President Donald Trump. U.S. officials said Trump warned Xi against supporting Iran; Beijing and Tehran both say their economic relationship continues. The frozen-funds problem itself predates that visit by years.

For Iran, the constraint is practical as well as political. Cash that cannot be converted or sent abroad is of limited use for imports from Europe, food purchases from Latin America, or any payment that requires dollars, euros, or an ordinary cross-border wire. That is the gap Pezeshkian described on American television: a major customer that takes the oil, but a banking system that will not let the seller take the money out.