First on Fox: A new report highlights China’s role in fuelling the global pandemic. The ongoing fentanyl crisis There were calls for the federal government in the United States to take more action against the communist geopolitical enemy.
The Heritage Foundation released the report, a copy of which was obtained in advance by Fox News Digital, titled “Holding China and Mexico Accountable for America’s Fentanyl Crisis.”
The report by Andrés Martínez-Fernández and Andrew J. Harding cites the high number of deaths caused by the drug, which can be fatal even in small doses, and estimates that it will kill 75,000 Americans in 2023.
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives for dinner at the Elysee Palace in Paris on May 6, 2024. (Photo: Daniel Dorko/Hans Lukas/Hans Lukas via AFP)
“At the core of this crisis is a complex global partnership bringing together America’s top geopolitical rival and powerful international criminal organizations,” he said.
Officials have often said that illicit fentanyl is manufactured in Mexico Chinese predecessors And then smuggled across the border by drug cartels. It is often mixed with other drugs so that users do not know they are consuming fentanyl.
The authors argue that while Mexico’s role in the crisis is well known, China’s actions are largely unknown.
He wrote, “In fact, most Americans are unaware that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) actively finances, supports, and promotes the deadliest drug threat in U.S. history. The combined forces of deadly Mexican drug cartels and hostile Chinese ambitions have presented the United States with a destabilizing crisis and a death toll that surpasses total U.S. casualties in the Vietnam War each year.”
They cite congressional reports that found the CCP directly subsidizes the manufacturing and export of illicit fentanyl ingredients, as well as a tax rebate program that actually encourages the export of certain fentanyl precursors, which the authors say undermines China’s claims that it cannot control the illicit activities of traffickers or identify which manufacturers are exporting them.
Hundreds of pounds of fentanyl and meth seized near Ensenada in October are brought to officers from the Mexican Attorney General’s Office for unloading at their headquarters in Tijuana, Mexico, Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“It is also possible that China does not have complete information on specific precursor shipment volumes, as it has not deployed sufficient numbers of inspectors over its pharmaceutical chemical manufacturing industries,” they wrote.
The report found that the chemicals are arriving via air freight, postal facilities and maritime routes. The authors also point to reports of China’s growing role in the network in Canada.
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The Biden administration has taken a number of steps to crack down on the fentanyl crisis, including greater access to treatment and increased funding and technology at ports of entry, where most fentanyl is seized. The Treasury has imposed sanctions on dozens of individuals and entities involved in trafficking, and has used diplomacy to push China to take tougher action against suppliers, the report said.
However, the authors warn that these successes “will ring hollow”, and argue that China has historically used negotiations to extract other concessions from the US.
Moreover, China’s announcements “will have no significant impact on (its) chemical industry,” he added, meaning that as long as suppliers can evade regulations — which has been documented for years — the production of fentanyl precursors will continue to prove profitable. “If past patterns repeat, the Biden administration’s fentanyl diplomacy is unlikely to avert this deadly crisis.”
The report also criticised what it said was “collusion” between the two parties. Corrupt Mexican officials And arguing for action against narco traffickers, he said that the government has given up the pretense of taking action against drug traffickers.
The report recommends that US strategy should acknowledge that “both the Chinese and Mexican governments lack good-faith partners.” Instead, they argue that the US should ask US intelligence agencies to publicly expose Chinese involvement in fentanyl trafficking, including by increasing penalties for financial institutions.
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He argues that the U.S. should also help reorient pharmaceutical supply chains away from China and to areas with competitive advantages nearby, while also working to highlight Mexico’s “complicity” in the crisis.
“If the U.S. government continues to treat the fentanyl crisis as just another illicit drug challenge and fails to stop the CCP from fueling this deadly trade, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans will risk losing their lives,” he said.
