Trump Accuses China of 'Poisoning' American Citizens, Imposes Tariffs

“We are ready for practical cooperation with the United States based on equality and mutual respect. However, we firmly oppose the US pressure, threats and blackmail against China under the pretext of the fentanyl issue,” a Beijing spokesman said in March, after Trump’s fentanyl tariffs were raised to 20% on all Chinese imports to the United States, CNN recalls.

But with those tariffs remaining in place months later, and despite a truce reducing other duties, Beijing is signaling that it is paying attention to the issue - and may be willing to do more.

Late last month, China announced it would add two more fentanyl precursors to its list of controlled substances, an expected move that would bring it into line with international rules that its diplomats portrayed as a sign of “active participation” in global drug control.

Days earlier, Chinese authorities also expanded controls on another class of drugs known as nitazenes, powerful synthetic opioids, alarming global health officials. That same day, China’s Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong told U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue that Beijing was open to strengthening “practical cooperation” on drug control.

The Trump administration accuses China of “maintaining” the flow of fentanyl, a lab-produced synthetic opioid tens of times more potent than heroin, into the United States. Abuse of the drug and its analogues has led to a drug overdose crisis in the United States that kills tens of thousands of Americans each year, although the numbers have dropped significantly in the past year, CNN reports.

Beijing believes it has gone beyond international norms to stem the flow of drugs and chemical components from its vast pharmaceutical sector. In 2019, Beijing placed controls on fentanyl as a class of drugs, a significant move that experts and U.S. officials say has sharply curtailed the flow of finished drugs directly from China to the United States.

But it didn’t take long for criminal networks to adapt. Chinese companies shifted to selling precursor chemicals, often to cartels-backed labs in Mexico, which then manufactured and shipped illicit fentanyl and similar drugs to the U.S. Since then, Chinese authorities have gained control over some of these precursor chemicals. But experts and U.S. officials say more could be done, since Beijing remains the largest source of products used to illegally manufacture fentanyl and other synthetic drugs in Mexico and elsewhere.

Chinese officials have not explicitly linked their recent efforts to control two more of these substances to relations with the U.S., instead calling them another example of “goodwill shown by China” and continuing to reject the premise of U.S. tariffs.

But Beijing is likely to expect credit for its latest moves in trade talks with the US. The question, however, is whether those moves will sway Washington and whether the two sides can work together on the issue if their overall relationship remains strained, CNN notes.

As U.S.-China relations have strained over everything from technology to China's militarization of the South China Sea, few issues have felt more personal to American leaders than China's role as a producer of drugs and chemicals fueling the U.S. opioid crisis.

During his first term, Trump hailed Chinese leader Xi Jinping's "wonderful humanitarian gesture" in declaring fentanyl a controlled substance in China.

But nearly six years later, Trump began his second term by accusing China of “actively maintaining and expanding the business of poisoning our citizens” – a charge China has vehemently denied.

The report also contradicts estimates from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, which said in an annual report released in May that fentanyl purity levels were declining through 2024, consistent with signs that fentanyl producers in Mexico were having trouble obtaining key precursor chemicals. That was because some Chinese suppliers “were wary of controlled precursor shipments … demonstrating their awareness that the Chinese government was increasingly controlling fentanyl precursors,” the report said.

Experts say Beijing's latest moves to control two additional fentanyl precursors and nitazenes are positive moves that could impact drug supply chains.

But they are also “smart maneuvering” on China's part, says expert Wanda Felbab-Brown.

Last year, the UN Convention on Illicit Drugs added two fentanyl precursors to its list of controlled substances, meaning signatory countries like China must follow suit. China controlled a number of nitazenes in 2024, and the latest step to expand those controls was already taken last fall, Felbab-Brown said.

“The Trump administration simply moved the clock, failed to acknowledge what China had already done and committed to do, and failed to hold China accountable for it. As a result, China is now also in a position where it can promise to do exactly the same things that it promised the Biden administration and use that as part of the negotiations,” Felbab-Brown said.

A “more effective position” would be to support China’s efforts in 2024 and then ask it to fill “significant and actionable” gaps in its drug control program, she added.

Beijing has fiercely defended its gains in controlling fentanyl and other synthetic drugs, releasing a 7,000-word white paper outlining its efforts in March, days after Trump imposed a second round of fentanyl-related tariffs.

Outside observers agree that U.S. efforts to curb demand are critical to mitigating the opioid crisis. They also note that even if the chemicals did not come from China, fentanyl producers would turn to other countries with large pharmaceutical and chemical industries, such as India.

In addition to China, Trump earlier this year imposed tariffs on Mexico and Canada, accusing them of not doing enough to curb migration and fentanyl trafficking, but provided significant exceptions to those tariffs. Earlier this year, the U.S. designated Mexican cartels it says are involved in fentanyl trafficking as foreign terrorist organizations.

The US State Department's annual drug control report, released in March, described "significant steps" China took in cooperation with the US last year to curb precursor exports, which it said included cracking down on online platforms and companies selling them, arrests and the inclusion of 55 synthetic drugs and chemical precursors on control lists.

China's Ministry of Public Security said last month it had seized more than 1,400 tonnes of various precursor chemicals and solved 151 related criminal cases in 2024.

But Chinese authorities also acknowledge the scale of the problem, with a recent report noting that the channels and means of smuggling chemicals out of the country are “expanding” and “constantly being updated,” creating “more serious problems.”

Beijing, which seeks to position itself as a responsible global player, has its own reasons for not wanting to be seen as an international supplier of illegal drugs. But Chinese officials have long linked cooperation with the U.S. on this issue to strengthening the relationship overall.

China completely halted drug control cooperation in August 2022 in retaliation for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. Then, in late 2023, a friendly summit was held between Xi Jinping and former US President Joe Biden to resume cooperation.

This time, China has bristled at the Trump administration's sudden imposition of tariffs, saying they "undermine" cooperation. The White House did not respond to CNN's request for comment on China's latest enforcement moves.

“If the US truly wants to cooperate with China, it should acknowledge the objective facts, correct its wrongdoings and seek dialogue with China,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said last month when asked whether the measures were taken in cooperation with or at the direction of the US.