Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on January 13, 2026
3 min readLast updated: January 19, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleThe US imposes 25% tariffs on Iran's trading partners, impacting major players like China, India, and Turkey amid geopolitical tensions.
Jan 13 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said any country that does business with Iran will face a 25% tariff on trade with the U.S., as Tehran grapples with its most substantial anti-government protests in years.
Iran, a member of the OPEC oil producers group, exported products to 147 trading partners in 2022, according to the most recent data from the World Bank.
Fuel is Iran's biggest export item by value, while major imports include intermediate goods, vegetables, machinery and equipment.
CHINA
China is Iran's largest trading partner. Iranian exports to China amounted to $22 billion in 2022, with fuels accounting for more than half of the total, according to the World Bank. Imports from China stood at $15 billion.
In 2025, China bought more than 80% of Iran's shipped oil, according to data from Kpler, an analytics firm. Iranian oil has a limited pool of buyers because of U.S. sanctions that seek to cut off funding to Tehran's nuclear programme.
INDIA
India's total bilateral trade with Iran stood at $1.34 billion for the first 10 months of 2025, according to India's commerce ministry. Major Indian exports to Iran include basmati rice, fruits, vegetables, drugs and other pharmaceutical products.
TURKEY
Turkish exports to Iran were $2.3 billion in full-year 2025, while imports were $2.2 billion over 11 months of the year, according to sector and official data sources.
GERMANY
Iran's exports to Germany stood at around 217 million euros in the first eleven months of 2025, an increase of 1.7%, according to data from the state-owned international economic promotion agency Germany Trade & Invest. German exports to Iran fell by a quarter to 871 million euros over the period.
SOUTH KOREA
South Korea's exports to Iran between January and November 2025 were marginal at $129 million, while imports stood at $1.6 million during the same period, according to data from the Korea International Trade Association.
JAPAN
Japan imported modest amounts of fruit, vegetables and textiles from Iran and shipped some machinery and vehicle engines there, according to the latest trade data from Japan that goes through November 2025.
(Reporting by Jihoon Lee, Heekyong Yang, John Geddie, Shubham Kalia, Akanksha Khushi, Christoph Steitz and Jonathan Spicer; Compiled by Miyoung Kim and Adam Jourdan; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
Foreign currency refers to any currency that is not the domestic currency of a country. It is used in international transactions and can fluctuate in value.
Trading partners are countries or entities that engage in trade with one another, exchanging goods and services to benefit their economies.
Economic growth is an increase in the production of goods and services in an economy over time, often measured by the rise in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Explore more articles in the Finance category
