Iran Turns to China for Ballistic Missile Materials as Nuclear Threat Grows

While negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program appear to have made little progress, Iran is further arming itself, a new report indicates.  

Iran has ordered materials for ballistic missiles from China as it seeks to bolster its military amid ongoing talks with the U.S. over its nuclear program, according to The Wall Street Journal.  

China is sending shipments of ammonium perchlorate, a substance used in explosives, to Iran, people familiar with the purchase told the journal. The explosive material could be used in hundreds of ballistic missiles and is expected to arrive in the coming months. Iran may be planning to give some of the material to the Houthis in Yemen, according to the journal.  

Iran is “increasing its military collaboration with China to rearm after Israeli strikes last year,” Robert Greenway, director of the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “The latest purchases would dramatically expand their offensive capacity to threaten Israel, U.S. forces, our partners and allies, and potentially disrupt global energy markets.”  

Meanwhile, Iran has continued to enrich uranium and either already has or is very close to reaching nuclear weapons grade enrichment levels, according to the Heritage expert.  

The U.S. and Iran remain engaged in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program but both sides appear to hold conflicting nonnegotiable standards for a deal.  

President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and following reports of a deal that would allow for some uranium enrichment to continue in Iran, Trump said any deal with Iran will ban all enrichment.  

But Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi wrote on X Wednesday: “No enrichment, no deal. No nuclear weapons, we have a deal.”  

Time is one of the key factors in the negotiations between Iran and the U.S., according to Greenway. Each day that goes by without a deal is another day Iran can continue enrichment.  

“Iran is exploiting the negotiations to radically increase uranium enrichment,” Greenway said, citing a recent International Atomic Energy Agency report.  

When discussions first began between Iran and the U.S. on April 12, the Trump administration set a deadline of two months to reach an agreement, making the deadline next week.  

Israel has assured the U.S. it will not carry out preemptive strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities while talks between the U.S. and Iran are ongoing, Axios reports. While Israel has the ability to damage Iran’s nuclear facilities, Greenway says it would require U.S. involvement to carry out a strike large enough to effectively neutralize Iran’s nuclear threat.

While there are fears a U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities could trigger a war, a recent report from The Heritage Foundation contended history has proven that such preemptive strikes usually do not result in a broader regional conflict.