Six months after America launched its war and blockade against Iran, the Islamic Republic is still projecting defiance. Its economy should be in shambles — yet the regime is behaving as though time is on its side. It hasn’t abandoned its regional ambitions or restrained its terrorist proxies. Instead, this week it escalated.

That escalation is now visible on both sides of the Arabian Peninsula. Iran continues to impede commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. On the other side, the Houthis have seized the critical Yemeni port of Mokha, advanced toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and reached strategic Red Sea islands.

Not only has Saudi Arabia seen both maritime exits blocked, but its east-west oil pipeline was put out of commission by fire from Iranian proxies apparently operating from Iraq.

This is becoming a strategic embarrassment for the United States and its allies. Every additional week in which Iran appears able to dictate the region’s economic temperature weakens the West’s credibility. Add the danger of Iran’s regime surviving not only intact but strengthened — still building a bomb, spreading terrorism and massacring its people — and fixing this becomes a clear priority.

Doing so should be the top line on Trump’s agenda at his Sept. 24 summit with Xi Jinping. Because China is fueling this war.

Yes, the US and China have much to discuss on trade, AI, tariffs, intellectual property, currency, Russia and more. But this — the unfinished business with Iran — is the house on fire. He must convince Xi to reduce China’s economic support for Iran.

China supplies the economic oxygen that allows this madness to continue. Chinese purchases account for roughly 90% of Iran’s oil exports, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, enabling Tehran to survive sanctions and finance the Revolutionary Guards and its regional proxies.

Iran’s accessible oil stockpile has fallen from roughly 90 million barrels to around 29 million, according to The Wall Street Journal. With the blockade preventing Iran from replenishing that supply, the regime’s projection of normalcy is a façade. Therefore, while Beijing has helped Tehran withstand sanctions as its buyer of last resort, that position is unsustainable — and Iranian and Chinese interests are beginning to diverge.

China may welcome a conflict that frustrates Washington, but it does not benefit indefinitely from chaos in the Persian Gulf. Before the war, approximately 20.9 million barrels of petroleum products passed through Hormuz each day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, with nearly 90% of its crude and condensate going to Asian markets. Iran’s control of the chokepoint threatens Chinese supplies from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq and Qatar, while the Houthi advance toward Bab el-Mandeb puts another maritime route at risk. Trump should exploit this divergence and convince Xi that Iran has become more costly than useful.

Trump should make three demands.

First, China should substantially and verifiably reduce purchases of Iranian oil, including oil routed through intermediaries or relabeled as originating elsewhere.

Second, Beijing should press Tehran to reopen Hormuz without discriminatory tolls, political conditions or threats against commercial vessels.

Third, China should provide neither military assistance nor new mechanisms for evading the blockade and financial sanctions.

Xi will not agree to this as a favor. But Washington should keep fundamental security questions, including support for Taiwan, where Trump seems especially wobbly, outside the bargain. Cooperation on Iran would not justify weakening Taiwan’s long-term security or encouraging further Chinese coercion.

A more appropriate lever exists in Venezuela.

Trump can offer Beijing a conditional and gradually expanding opening for Chinese commercial participation in Venezuela’s oil sector. This is not to say the US would gift Venezuela’s oil to China. (It’s not Trump’s to give anyway.) But Washington can simply use the sanctions and licensing framework it already controls to permit limited Chinese commercial participation.

A verified reduction in Chinese purchases of Iranian oil could unlock licenses to purchase a defined volume of Venezuelan crude, at a discount that makes sense. Further reductions could permit limited investment in drilling, pipelines and storage.

That’s not what America wants in its backyard. But you can’t have everything you want. There are legitimate reasons to limit China’s presence in the Western Hemisphere. Licenses should restrict companies, ownership stakes and projects while excluding ports, telecommunications and security infrastructure. Every authorization should be reversible.

China already has extensive experience in Venezuela, where its institutions have lent billions and its energy companies have invested and purchased crude. Trump would be exploiting an existing Chinese interest, not creating one.

If China resumed Iranian purchases above the agreed limits or helped Tehran conceal transactions or provided prohibited military assistance, then the licenses would expire and the sanctions would return.

Such a bargain aligns three interests. Venezuela would receive capital and a path toward higher production. China would gain another long-term energy source. The United States would cut the financial connection that allows Iran to absorb Western pressure for longer than is acceptable.

Iran currently wants the world to believe that nothing can force it to retreat and its forces and proxies are projecting power from Hormuz to Bab el-Mandeb while the West struggles to translate pressure into submission.

Trump can change that calculation by focusing on the country that makes Iran’s defiance economically possible. So on September 24, Trump should remind China’s leader that Iran’s accessible oil stockpile is vanishing anyway, that Beijing has reasons to want Hormuz reopened faster, and that America is willing to deal.

Dan Perry is the former London-based Europe-Africa editor and Cairo-based Middle East editor of the Associated Press.