Tucker Carlson Asks if Western Sanctions Were Meant to Help China

Tucker Carlson suggested on his show that U.S. and European oil sanctions on Russia, Iran and Venezuela may be working as intended, and that the intent may be to help China. He presented the idea as an inference and posed it as a question.

The suggestion cuts against Donald Trump's own Iran policy. In February 2025 the White House restored "maximum pressure" on Iran, directing a campaign "aimed at driving Iran's oil exports to zero." Carlson made the suggestion in an episode in which he interviewed Morgan Downey, an energy-markets analyst and author of the book Oil 101.

Tucker Carlson on Sanctions and China

Downey told Carlson that sanctions on the three oil producers "didn't restrict one barrel of exports," because China bought the oil instead. "They bought two million barrels a day from Venezuela, two million barrels a day of sanctioned crude from Iran, two million barrels a day of sanctioned crude from Russia," Downey said, adding that the barrels came at "a $10 to $20 per barrel discount."

Carlson took the argument a step further. He said the flows were easy to see, "It's being bought at a discount by our main geopolitical rival, China", so policymakers could not plead ignorance.

"So you have to, at a certain point, if it continues to happen, assume it happening is the point of the exercise. Like, this is an effort to help China over the West," Carlson said. "Like, how is it not that?"

Downey answered by pointing to the limits of bureaucratic control. "It showed the limits of control of the blob, if you will, the deep state, the blob, the bureaucracy," he said, describing the European Union as slow-moving bureaucracies that keep policies in place for years. Later, Carlson restated the point more narrowly: "Western sanctions against outlaw countries help China's economy. Directly."

What the Sanctions Were Meant to Do

In Russia's case, the sanctions were never designed to stop the oil. The Treasury Department has described the G7 price cap as aimed at "reducing Russia's revenue and keeping the global energy market stable." In a 2023 progress report, it said Russian federal oil revenues fell by more than 40 percent in early 2023 from a year earlier even as Russia exported more crude, and that Moscow had changed its tax rules in a way that "institutionalizes the discounted value of Russian crude."

On that reading, the discounts Downey described cut both ways. They lower China's fuel bill, and they are also money the sanctioned sellers do not collect.

What the China Oil Import Data Shows

The trade Carlson described is real, though it is smaller than Downey said. In a January analysis, Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy estimated that China imported about 1.38 million barrels per day of Iranian crude in 2025, plus 389,000 from Venezuela and at least 800,000 of sanctioned Russian oil. Together that came to at least 2.6 million barrels a day, or more than 22 percent of China's imports.

The analysis put the discount on Iranian Light at $8 to $10 a barrel below Omani crude, below the $10 to $20 range Downey cited.

China's Oil Stockpile vs. the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Downey said China had built up "1.5 billion barrels of oil in storage," about five times the U.S. reserve. Independent estimates come in lower. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that China's oil stocks reached nearly 1.4 billion barrels in December 2025: about 360 million in government reserves and roughly 1 billion in commercial inventories. Columbia's analysis put onshore crude stocks at about 1.2 billion barrels.

China does not publish the figures, and Downey himself acknowledged on air that outsiders are guessing. Asked why China cut its imports when the Iran war began, he said Beijing most likely drew on its reserves, then conceded the size of the drawdown is unknown: "No one really knows. I don't know. No one really knows."

The U.S. side of his comparison is closer to the record. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve held about 283 million barrels in late October, according to Energy Department weekly data. Downey said the United States released oil from the reserve early this year.

Donald Trump's Own Sanctions Record

In Venezuela, the administration went beyond sanctions. On January 3, U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro, and Trump said the United States would run the country and tap its oil reserves. Downey said the operation cut off China's discounted Venezuelan supply, crediting "the Donald Trump doctrine" with knocking China "out of the Western Hemisphere."

Carlson has broken with Trump over the Iran war before, warning that Republicans will get "crushed" over it. The sanctions argument goes further. It suggests the economic pressure Washington has used for years against Moscow, Tehran and Caracas may have done the most for Beijing.

Trump's approval stands at 37.7 percent in PolitiKool's polling average. Carlson did not say who in Washington he believed wanted to help China.