What has Trump done now?

[onetrack]

Quote

Who supplied Iran with the ballistic missiles?

China has supplied Iran with a modest number of missiles in recent months - but those Chinese shipments have probably been a lot less than Iran lost in the 12 Day War with Israel in June 2025.

 

It's reported that Iran had reserves of around 2500 missiles before the 12 Day War, but lost around 1000 of them to war use and damage from Israeli strikes. There are reports the Iranian missile stockpile has returned to something like 2000 missiles.

Sending those missiles off at a decent rate will reduce their stockpile, as they couldn't build them as fast as they fire them off, in a decent punch-up.

 

However, Iran still has a dangerous number of major missile-building facilities, and a refined missile-building capacity, with a number of hardened underground manufacturing facilities.

The bottom line is that Iran is dependent on raw supplies of dual-use electronics, sodium perchlorate for rocket fuel, and more than likely, goodly amounts of steel for missile casings - and China is their major and eager supplier.

There are agreements in place to keep the missile raw materials flowing from China, but whether they will continue with an Iranian administration and military forces in some level of disarray, remains to be seen.

 

China is accepting payment for all this military support in Iranian crude. Iran is in a bit of a bind as regards blocking the Straits of Hormuz for lengthy periods, because it needs the Straits open to be able to ship crude to China and the rest of the world.

Iran will try to seriously disrupt international shipping in the Straits, mainly to drive up oil prices, and make the American war effort more costly to them, and to try and disrupt the U.S. economy by sharply increased oil prices. Of course, sharply increased oil prices only benefit Iran, when it comes to oil income.

[rgmwa]

2 hours ago, onetrack said:

Of course, sharply increased oil prices only benefit Iran, when it comes to oil income.

And Russia.