Since 2013, synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, have driven an enormous crisis in overdose deaths in the United States, along with the other damaging consequences of addiction and the illegal drug trade. China is a major source of fentanyl and fentanyl precursors — a key challenge in U.S.-Chinese relations. In late 2023, China resumed some cooperation with the United States to reduce the supply of precursors. Earlier this year, the Trump administration imposed specific tariffs on China to pressure Beijing to do more to disrupt the opioid supply chain, and China retaliated with its own tariffs. On Oct. 30, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping reached an agreement to further restrict Chinese fentanyl-related exports in exchange for a reduction in U.S. tariffs. We asked five experts what additional steps Washington should take to address the flow of fentanyl precursors from China.Read more below.Vanda Felbab-Brown Director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors, Co-Director of the Africa Security Initiative, and Senior Fellow at the Brookings InstitutionThe Trump-Xi summit did not address the most important issue related to the supply of precursors for illicit fentanyl and other synthetic drugs from China — namely, how to deal with nonscheduled precursors shipped from China to criminal groups. As a key deliverable to reduce U.S. fentanyl-linked tariffs, China announced the scheduling of 13 fentanyl precursors after the summit. In July, Beijing had announced the scheduling of nizatines, synthetic opioids even more powerful than fentanyl. Scheduling chemicals — imposing controls on their legal trade or banning it altogether — is important. But its effectiveness is limited because drug chemists adapt by producing illicit substances from widely used industrial and household chemicals that governments cannot reasonably restrict.Furthermore, China’s laws lack material support clauses and racketeering and conspiracy statutes, which undermine Chinese law enforcement’s ability
Members-Only Content
This article is reserved for War on the Rocks members. Join our community to unlock exclusive insights and analysis.
Since 2013, synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, have driven an enormous crisis in overdose deaths in the United States, along with the other damaging consequences of addiction and the illegal drug trade. China is a major source of fentanyl and fentanyl precursors — a key challenge in U.S.-Chinese relations. In late 2023, China resumed some cooperation with the United States to reduce the supply of precursors. Earlier this year, the Trump administration imposed specific tariffs on China to pressure Beijing to do more to disrupt the opioid supply chain, and China retaliated with its own tariffs. On Oct. 30, U.S.
