The United States and China agreed to strengthen coordination and promote “in-depth” drug control at the first senior-level meeting between the two nations.
The meeting, held in Washington, D.C., this week, was agreed to in November and allowed representatives from both nations to exchange their respective concerns.
The White House said discussions "focused on ways to strengthen coordination on law enforcement actions; disrupt the illicit financing of transnational criminal organization networks, accelerate the scheduling of synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals; address the illicit diversion of precursor chemicals; exchange information on emerging threats; and advance progress in multilateral fora."
The U.S. delegation was led by Jennifer Daskal, a deputy homeland security adviser . Wei Xiaojun, director general of the Ministry of Public Security’s Narcotics Control Bureau, led the Chinese side.
The US-China Counternarcotics Working Group was launched in January, following the 2023 summit in San Francisco between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping .
The leaders agreed to resume bilateral anti-narcotics cooperation after it was put on pause following former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) visit to Taiwan in August 2022.
The global manufacturing and trafficking of synthetic drugs, including fentanyl, has wreaked havoc in the U.S.
U.S. officials have said China is the primary source of the precursor chemicals synthesized into fentanyl by drug cartels in Mexico. China has indicated in the past that it was taking the problem seriously but did little, if anything, of substance. That has slowly started to change with Beijing shutting down some sellers of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl and drafting new regulations for three other chemicals.
Chinese police, acting on U.S. intelligence, recently arrested a 27-year-old man named Tong Peiji, alleged to be involved in money laundering for the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.
“We are seeing some meaningful steps,” a senior Biden administration official told the Wall Street Journal. “There is a lot more to do. But we are encouraged particularly by the actions of the last couple of weeks.”
Chinese police have shut down 14 websites, suspended 332 business accounts and 1,016 online shops and operations, and “significantly reduced the number of online advertisements related to fentanyl," China's Public Security Ministry said in June.
More than 107,000 people in the U.S. died in 2023 of drug overdoses, of which around 75,000 died from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, a drug that is 100 times more potent than morphine. The overdose fatality count in the U.S. is still about double what it was in 2015.
In recent months, senior U.S. officials have traveled to China. Last month, Dr. Rahul Gupta, the White House’s director of National Drug Control Policy, said China and the U.S. had agreed to establish a direct line of communication on threats from new synthetic substances.
The U.S. has complained that private companies in China are among the top producers of the chemical building blocks to make fentanyl.
The drug crisis, with footprints in every state in the country, is a major concern and an election issue . The Midwestern swing states are among those that have been hit the hardest.
The Biden administration is making a new policy push to combat fentanyl before his term ends. Former President Donald Trump has in recent days stepped up his attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris and the Biden administration's failed efforts to slow the illegal drug flow at the border.
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On Wednesday, the White House announced a series of proposals from Biden that include a push on Congress to pass legislation to establish a pill press and tableting machine registry as well as harsher penalties against convicted drug smugglers and fentanyl traffickers.
He also wants to tighten rules on importers shipping small packages into the U.S. The goal is to improve the detection of fentanyl precursor chemicals that are often sent to the U.S. in low-value shipments that aren't subjected to the same customs and trade inspections and other barriers.
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