TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The U.S. sanctioned two Chinese businesses and four Chinese nationals for allegedly supplying chemicals to Mexican drug cartels for fentanyl production, the U.S. Department of the Treasury said on Friday (April 14).
“Fentanyl is the single deadliest drug threat our nation has ever encountered,” according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). DEA officials say the drug is mass-produced in Mexico, with the help of chemicals imported from China, then smuggled across the U.S. border.
The U.S. blames Mexico and China for insufficient action to control the spread of fentanyl. However, Mexico and China argue the root of the problem is the increasing demand for the drug in the U.S.
On March 22, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, asking for support in controlling fentanyl shipments. He wrote, “We come to you…not to ask for your support in the face of these rude threats, but to request that for humanitarian reasons, you help us control shipments of fentanyl that can be sent from China to our country,” per Reuters.
Lopez Obrador continues to denounce U.S. criticism, saying, “Unjustly, they are blaming us for problems that in large measure have to do with their loss of values, their welfare crisis,” per the Guardian.
In addition, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning claimed the fentanyl problem is “completely made in the U.S.” “The U.S. should face up to its own problems and take more substantive measures to strengthen domestic supervision and reduce demand,” Ning said.
China condemned U.S. sanctions on Monday (April 17), saying the move "seriously undermines" international cooperation on illegal drugs, per Reuters. The two Chinese companies sanctioned were Wuhan Shuokang Biological Technology Co., Ltd and Suzhou Xiaoli Pharmatech Co., Ltd.
Beijing started strictly controlling fentanyl shipments in 2018, after which production largely shifted to Mexico. The U.S. says that Chinese traffickers now export precursor chemicals, which Beijing claims it cannot prevent because they are not themselves illegal, per Axios.
Beijing formally severed cooperation with the U.S. on counter-narcotics in April 2022, as a countermeasure in response to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year.
“China is linking the fentanyl issue and negotiations with other totally different issues like [the] Taiwan issue. So when Pelosi visited Taiwan, one of the ways in which China retaliated against the United States was to cease negotiations over the fentanyl issue,” Anders Corr, publisher of the Journal of Political Risk, told the Epoch Times.
The lack of coordination between the U.S., China, and Mexico amid the downward spiral of U.S-China relations is allowing fentanyl supply chains and drug trafficking to go unchecked.