US President Donald Trump has increased tariffs on all Chinese imports to 20% from the previous 10% levy to punish Beijing for what he says is its failure to halt shipments of chemicals used for the production of the deadly opioid fentanyl to the US.
“The US should’ve said a big thank you to us,” a senior Chinese foreign ministry official said at a briefing in Beijing to discuss China’s white paper on fentanyl issued earlier this month.
“But regrettably…the US doesn’t appreciate this kindness. On the contrary, it is using the fentanyl issue to spread all kinds of lies and has been smearing China, shifting the blame, regardless of the progress of the cooperation”.
The US and China restarted fentanyl and law enforcement cooperation more than a year ago under former US president Joe Biden, helping to improve ties that had suffered over issues ranging from trade rows, Covid-19, Taiwan and human rights.
The cooperation has resulted in multiple high-level visits over the last year and improved information sharing between the investigators, although Trump has accused China of not moving hard and fast enough with its fentanyl crackdown.
The Chinese foreign ministry official said that the US using “something that has achieved a lot of progress…as an excuse to slap tariffs on China was not the way to solve problems,” adding that the US was “returning kindness with hostility” and its actions made “no sense”.
“It will seriously undermine dialogue and cooperation between the two countries on drug control.
“We are firmly opposed to the pressuring, threatening and blackmail from US side citing the fentanyl issue as an excuse,” the official said.
Over recent years China has taken steps to constrict the fentanyl pipeline.
During the first Trump administration, in 2019, it placed fentanyl and its analogs under national control, effectively ending illicit exports of the finished product.
But exporters shifted their tactics, experts say, by instead selling “precursor” or even “pre-precursor” chemicals used to make fentanyl by Mexican cartels that require only minor modifications to create the final product.
The US, where fentanyl abuse has been a major cause of death, has pushed China for deeper law enforcement cooperation, including tackling illicit finance, arrests of rogue chemists and raids of labs involved in the production of precursors.
A Reuters series last year penetrated the fentanyl supply chain and revealed how drug traffickers bring Chinese-made fentanyl ingredients into the US and Mexico and then synthesise them in clandestine Mexican labs.