China will begin restricting the production and sale of chemicals used to make fentanyl in the coming weeks, a move that the Biden administration has requested for several years and will begin to see come to fruition ahead of the November election.
Following 2 1/2 years of diplomatic talks and urging from U.S. officials to stifle the flow of fentanyl precursors used to make the most lethal U.S.-consumed drug being sent to Mexico, China has agreed to crack down on the ingredients at the start of September.
China's willingness to cooperate signifies a major step forward for both nations despite having a complicated relationship.
Fentanyl has claimed more lives under the Biden administration than any other drug, with nearly all of the substance coming into the country from Mexico.
In fiscal 2023, federal law enforcement agents at the nation's border seized more than 6 billion potentially lethal doses of fentanyl, enough to kill all 330 million Americans 18 times — a show of how aggressively Mexican drug lords are pushing it into the country.
Starting Sept. 1, the Chinese government will conduct more stringent oversight of the production of three chemicals used to make fentanyl: 4-AP, 1-boc-4-AP, and norfentanyl. Exporters must also now be licensed, according to a notice that the Chinese government posted online Monday, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs blacklisted the three substances nearly 2 1/2 years ago, but China has slow-walked its internal response to the order.
The Biden administration met with Chinese authorities last November in California, where leaders of both countries agreed to form a joint counternarcotics working group, which is believed to have fueled China's internal decision to restrict fentanyl ingredients.
Fentanyl is a legitimate pharmaceutical drug that is up to 100 times stronger than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin. Overdose deaths in the United States have soared in recent years, topping 100,000 per year, fueled by the availability of fake fentanyl pills.
Cartels that move and sell fentanyl manufacture a counterfeit version that is made to look like other prescription pills, including Percocet and Oxycodone, but actually contains the illicit fentanyl.
“People in labs in China are producing this substance that is killing Americans,” then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a 2018 interview , long before the global emergence of the coronavirus, which also was first detected in Wuhan, China.
The fentanyl ingredients are sent to Mexico, where the final product is made. It is then snuck over the U.S.-Mexico border and dispersed nationwide.
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Authorities have long been aware that China and Mexico have teamed up to produce and profit in this drug-smuggling endeavor, but in recent years, Chinese businesses have stepped up not to only facilitate the making of fentanyl but also the laundering of profits out of the U.S.
Recognizing that fentanyl was becoming the new face of the opioid epidemic, the Trump administration pressured Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2019 to make the drug illegal. In response, labs in Wuhan that make most of the fentanyl consumed in the U.S. pivoted to produce instead the precursor ingredients that were themselves not illegal.
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