President Donald Trump’s new proposal for Russia and China can be seen as “Maximum Pressure 2.0,” an application of the same strategic doctrine he famously used against Iran. The core idea is to apply overwhelming and multifaceted economic pressure to force a change in the target regime’s behavior.
Just as with Iran, the strategy involves a primary embargo aimed at crippling the target’s main source of revenue—in this case, oil. Trump is demanding that his allies join this embargo to make it truly effective, mirroring his efforts to stop allies from trading with Tehran.
The second key element is the use of secondary sanctions or penalties against third countries that continue to do business with the target. His proposed tariffs on China for buying Russian oil are a direct parallel to the secondary sanctions used to punish countries and companies that did business with Iran.
This is a familiar playbook for the Trump administration. It is a strategy of economic strangulation, designed to be so painful that the target has no choice but to capitulate to U.S. demands. He is now betting that this same maximum pressure campaign can succeed against a much larger and more powerful adversary in Russia.