BEIJING (Dispatches) -- 
China’s imports of Iranian oil surged last month as buyers stocked up despite threats of sanctions by the U.S. administration and amid an escalating trade war between Beijing and Washington, tanker tracking agencies say.
Data by ship tracking firm Vortexa announced on Thursday that the Chinese oil imports from Iran had surpassed 1.8 million barrels per day in March, an all-time high, coinciding with a rise in inventory levels in China’s independent refining hub Shandong Province.
Overall onshore inventories in Shandong rose by 22 million barrels in March from February, an amount matching the increased Iranian arrivals, according to Vortexa.
Data from analytics firm Kpler also put China’s Iranian oil imports at 1.37 million bpd last month, up 83% from 747,000 bpd in February and a five-month high, while two traders who track Iranian flows into China estimated March imports at 1.67 million bpd and 1.8 million bpd, respectively.
Iranian oil accounted for 13% of China’s March crude imports, Kpler data showed.
China continues to buy Iran’s oil in defiance of U.S. unilateral sanctions, with imports reportedly averaging about 40 million barrels per month.
The U.S. administration has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iranian oil trade since President Donald Trump’s February call for its so-called “maximum pressure” on Tehran, including March sanctions on Shandong teapot refiner Shouguang Luqing Petrochemical.
On Thursday, it slapped sanctions on Iranian oil trading networks, including on a China-based crude oil storage terminal linked via a pipeline to an independent refinery.
The Treasury Department also designated UAE-based Indian national Jugwinder Singh Brar, who owns shipping companies with a fleet of nearly 30 vessels, over what it claimed was “transfers of Iranian petroleum.”
The sanctions block U.S. assets of those designated and prevent Americans from doing business with them.
The sanctions come amid Trump’s scattergun tariff regime,
which has over the past week whipped up a huge tempest in global trade.
China said on Friday it would raise tariffs on U.S. goods to 125 percent, further deepening the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
“The U.S.’s imposition of abnormally high tariffs on China seriously violates international trade rules, basic economic laws

 and common sense,” Beijing’s State Council Tariff Commission said in a statement, adding that the new levy comes into effect on Saturday.
Beijing’s retaliation was a response after Trump ratcheted up tariffs on Chinese imports, raising them effectively to 145% when levies imposed earlier this year are taken into account.