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@ Tim Bouma
2025-06-06 11:03:23
New Rules of War at Sea Test U.S. Navy Iran taps China for missile fuel
BY STEPHEN KALIN AND SHELBY HOLLIDAY
The Wall Street Journal
Jun 06, 2025
Proliferation of cheap missiles and drones made Houthis a surprisingly difficult foe
The evening of May 6, an F/A-18 Super Hornet was coming in for a landing on the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in the Red Sea. An onboard mechanism to slow it down failed, and the $67 million aircraft slid off the carrier’s runway and into the water.
It was the third fighter jet that the Truman had lost in less than five months, and came hours after President Trump surprised Pentagon officials with the announcement that the U.S. had reached a truce with the Houthis in Yemen. The Truman had arrived at the
Red Sea in December 2024 to battle the Iran-aligned militants—joining a campaign filled with heavy exchanges and close calls that strained the U.S. Navy.
Officials are now dissecting how a scrappy adversary was able to test the world’s most capable surface fleet. The Houthis proved to be a surprisingly difficult foe, engaging the Navy in its fiercest battles since World War II despite fighting from primitive quarters and caves in one of the world’s poorest countries.
The Houthis benefited from the pro
Iran has ordered thousands of tons of ballistic-missile ingredients from China, people familiar with the transaction said, seeking to rebuild its military prowess as it discusses the future of its nuclear program with the U.S.
Shipments of ammonium perchlorate are expected to reach Iran in coming months and could fuel hundreds of ballistic missiles, the people said. Some of the material likely would be sent to militias in the region aligned with Iran, including Houthis in Yemen, said one of the people.
Iran wants to bolster regional allies and rebuild its arsenal, while it participates in talks with the Trump administration over its nuclear program. Tehran continues to expand its stockpiles of uranium enriched to just below weapons grade and ruled out negotiating limits on its missile program.
An Iranian entity called Pishgaman Tejarat Rafi Novin Co. ordered the missile ingredients in recent months from Hong Kong-based Lion Commodities Holdings Ltd., said people familiar with the order.
Lion Commodities director Nelson Barba didn’t respond to a request for comment. Pishgaman couldn’t be reached for comment.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations didn’t respond to a request for comment. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said China wasn’t aware of the contract. China has “exercised strict control over dual-use items in accordance with China’s export control laws and regulations and its international obligations,” the spokesperson said.
Iran has been looking for ways to rebuild its so-called Axis of Resistance network of militias after Israel pummeled Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, and the Assad regime fell in Syria. U.S. and Israeli strikes on the Houthis hurt the group’s capabilities, though they still threaten Israel.
Iran recently transferred ballistic missiles to Shia militia groups in Iraq, who could target Israel and U.S. forces in the region, the people confirmed. The missile transfers were previously reported by the Times of London.
Iran has one of the biggest ballistic-missile programs in the region, U.S. officials have said. Ammonium perchlorate, an oxidizer used in fireworks, is essential to the solid propellant used in Iran’s most effective ballistic missiles.
Earlier this year, two Iranian ships docked in China were loaded with more than 1,000 tons of sodium perchlorate, a precursor for producing ammonium perchlorate. The material was delivered to Iranian ports this year, according to shipping trackers. The sodium perchlorate was enough to fuel about 260 short-range missiles, officials said.
The new, larger contract for ammonium perchlorate could be enough for Iran to produce 800 missiles, one official said. The contract likely was signed before Trump said he proposed nuclear talks to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in early March.
The U.S. Treasury on April 29 sanctioned six people and six entities based in Iran and China for their role in “procuring ballistic missile propellant ingredients,” for Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Later it added sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong entities, and people for aiding Iran’s ballistic-missile industry.
Treasury in May added sodium perchlorate to the list of materials it says are being used for Iran’s military, nuclear or ballistic-missile programs. “Chinese entities and individuals have provided support to Iran’s ballistic missile program, as well as to the Houthis’ missile and UAV production efforts,” said a State Department official.
In 2022, U.S. naval forces said they intercepted a vessel in the Gulf of Oman carrying over 70 tons of ammonium perchlorate on a route commonly used by Iran to send weapons to the Houthis in Yemen.
Israel severely damaged Iran’s ability to produce new solid propellant missiles in October by taking out about 12 so-called planetary mixers, used to blend components for the missiles. Iran has started to repair the mixers, one official said. That means much of the material imported from China could remain in Iran but some is expected to be sent to militia, the official said.
Iran likely needs material from abroad to avoid bottlenecks in its domestic-production capabilities, said Fabian Hinz, a military analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Storing the combustible material creates risks. An April explosion at the Shahid Rajaee port, which handles most of Iran’s container trade, killed dozens of people, state media said. The blast was the result of mishandling explosive material by a unit of the IRGC’s Quds Force. At least some of the sodium perchlorate imported from China was lost, one official said.
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