A delegation including officials from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, State Department, and Treasury Department met to discuss how Chinese chemicals (called precursors) used in the manufacture of fentanyl were sold to foreign drug cartels. We plan to discuss ways to eradicate shipments to the United States, including improved tracking. And label it.
The talks are a step in a process that began in November, when the Chinese government, which had remained silent for years, opened lines of communication with the United States on countering drug trafficking in a show of good faith and issued a warning to Chinese chemical manufacturers. It shows progress.
“This is a very important and pivotal time for a direct commission on this issue,” a White House official said Sunday. “This is a platform for continued coordination to support specific enforcement actions aimed at countering the evolving synthetic drug threat,” officials said.
The Chinese government banned the sale of fentanyl in 2019, effectively ending direct shipments of fentanyl from Chinese suppliers to the United States. However, Chinese companies remain among the largest manufacturers of fentanyl precursors.These chemicals are still sold to third parties–It is used in political markets, including Mexico, to make synthetic drugs that are smuggled into the United States.
Officials in Beijing and Washington are divided over the role of China’s bellwether. Some U.S. lawmakers have blamed the Chinese government for the roughly 100,000 annual U.S. deaths related to fentanyl abuse. In return, authorities in Beijing are blaming the United States for failing to contain the outbreak at home.
“The United States itself is the root cause of the drug problem,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said. US government sanctions “It is the duty of importers to ensure that such chemicals do not fall into the hands of illegal pharmaceutical companies,” he said.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
Despite the frictions, a senior U.S. official said Sunday that significant progress had already been made in disrupting the supply of fentanyl precursors to the United States, with the resumption of communications since November. Officials claimed Decreasing seizures as evidence of decreasing supply.
“We have information that China initiated action against Chinese suppliers of synthetic drugs and chemical precursors right around the time of the summit. And in the following month, companies were shut down and international accounts were cleared. We saw it blocked,” the official said, adding that he believed this was the first law enforcement action by the Chinese government since 2017.
The official also said the Chinese government submitted 145 different drugs in November.–This is the first time since 2017 that the Chinese government has registered a related case in the International Narcotics Control Commission database, a tool used to share information internationally on suspected human trafficking.
In November, the Chinese government also issued a public notice warning domestic producers of more than 50 precursor chemicals that they could face legal action if they send the chemicals overseas. They also warned of the possibility of “lock-in” by foreign authorities and said exporters should use caution when shipping goods to countries such as the United States and Mexico.
U.S. government officials compared the precursor notice to a similar notice issued in 2019, after which seizures of fentanyl shipped directly from China to the United States decreased almost completely.
“Our prediction is that the same thing will start to happen in this precursor chemistry industry,” the official said. The Chinese government is also in talks with Mexico on the issue, the official added.
The resumption of cooperation on counternarcotics comes after a period of intense friction marked by claims that the novel coronavirus originated, a near collision between a ship and a fighter jet in the South China Sea, and a dispute over Chinese reconnaissance balloons. It was held in a relatively warm environment. I crossed the United States early last year. In December, senior military officials from the two countries finally resumed major lines of communication.