Trump camps says China is ‘attacking’ US with fantenyl

Donald Trump’s return to power portends a shakeup in the U.S. approach to addressing America’s fentanyl crisis and what counternarcotics officials say is the biggest obstacle to solving it: China.

Advisors to the Republican president-elect’s transition team are advocating a much more aggressive posture towards Beijing over fentanyl than the one adopted by Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.

Already, Trump is signaling that to stem the flow of narcotics he will resort to his weapon of choice: tariffs.

In posts on Monday on Truth Social, his social network, he promised additional 10% tariffs on goods from China, and 25% duties on merchandise from Mexico and Canada. Trump claimed these nations have not taken strong enough action to stop illicit drugs, particularly fentanyl, from entering the United States. He said his many talks with China about stopping the flow of drugs were “to no avail.”

Trump’s advisors are likewise pushing for U.S. sanctions on Chinese financial institutions allegedly linked to the fentanyl trade. Trump will be the ultimate decider.

China is the dominant source of chemical precursors used by Mexican cartels to produce fentanyl, while Chinese money launderers have become key players in the international drug trade, U.S. authorities say. The Biden administration has been negotiating with Beijing for the past year to crack down on both. Diplomacy has yielded promising but modest results so far. That has frustrated some U.S. security officials and China hawks who say the U.S. must ratchet up the pressure to get Beijing’s leadership to act.