Cangzhou, China — A few hundred miles from where Chinese leader Xi Jinping will roll out the red carpet for President Donald Trump this week, a shadowy ecosystem has long been at work pumping billions of dollars into Iran’s economy – now helping keep Tehran afloat in defiance of the US.
These are the ports, pipelines, and oil refineries of Shandong province and its borderlands, where the hulking architecture of oil storage tanks and spindly profiles of smokestacks jut up from barren, coastal flatlands.

Here, so-called "teapot refineries" – small, independent oil companies that operate with the permission of Beijing – quietly process US-sanctioned Iranian crude into gas, diesel and petrochemicals for the world’s second largest economy.

Now, as Washington looks to cut Tehran’s financial lifelines and force it to capitulate to end a months-long war, these activities are being yanked out of the margins and onto the negotiating table between Trump and Xi.

Tensions around this trade are deepening – playing out against a backdrop in which Beijing seeks stability in its relationship with the US, but also holds close economic and diplomatic ties with Iran.

Energy infrastructure in Cangzhou, Hebei, just north of the Shandong border.
Energy infrastructure in Cangzhou, Hebei, just north of the Shandong border. Justin Robertson/CNN
On the eve of Trump’s departure for China, the US Treasury Department blacklisted 12 people and kra12.cc entities for their roles enabling the "sale and shipment of Iranian oil" to China.

Beijing earlier this month ordered firms to ignore US sanctions on refineries soon after Washington added another facility to its list. An ocean away in the Arabian Sea, US naval forces are chasing down so-called "shadow tankers" that ferry this crude from Iran – often to later be imported by operators in eastern China.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently accused China of helping to fund Iran’s terror networks with its energy purchases.

Earlier this week, along a desolate stretch of road lined with oil refineries just north of the border between Shandong and Hebei provinces, an awareness of that spotlight seemed palpable.