Over the past year and a half, Trump frequently issued maximal threats against various trading partners to varying degrees of success. Although Trump earned a well-deserved reputation for backing off his most alarming threats (taking control of Greenland, forcing Brazil to call off its election fraud case against former President Jair Bolsonaro), many trading partners acquiesced to Trump’s terms.

But Iran is following China’s model instead.

Trump last spring dialed up China’s tariffs so high that it created a virtual embargo on Chinese goods to the United States. China retaliated by restricting exports of rare-earth minerals critical to a wide range of electronics, threatening US businesses, consumers and even the military.

Trump relented and brought tariffs way down – in exchange for China’s pledge to reopen the rare-earth floodgates. But China never backed down, hanging onto its trump card, despite Trump’s repeated threats to raise tariffs again – a power the Supreme Court recently blunted.

Iran, similarly, views control over the Strait of Hormuz as the one piece of leverage it wields over the United States as a tool to stop an existential war and bring America to the negotiating table.