China has failed to cut its fentanyl trafficking, US congressional panel finds

‘China remains the primary country of origin for illicit fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances,’ US-China Economic and Security Review Commission says

Rather than ship directly into US, Chinese manufacturers now send raw materials to Mexico, where cartels make the drug then deliver it across the border

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An officer from Customs and Border Protection working with a dog to check parcels for fentanyl at John F Kennedy Airport in New York in 2019. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:49am, 25 Aug 2021Updated: 10:45pm, 25 Aug 2021

Beijing has so far not lived up to its promises to stanch the flow of the deadly synthetic drug fentanyl from Chinese chemical factories into the US, according to a report Tuesday by a congressional advisory panel.

“China remains the primary country of origin for illicit fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States,” concluded the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), which advises US lawmakers on the national security implications of the US-China relationship.

A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) chemist checking confiscated tablets containing fentanyl at the DEA Northeast Regional Laboratory in New York in 2019. Photo: AFP

But many of the drugs are no longer being shipped directly from China. Instead, the report said, China is sending raw materials to Mexico, where cartels manufacture them into fentanyl and deliver them into the US.

The report comes more than two years after Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged to former US president Donald Trump that authorities in China would crack down on the production and distribution of fentanyl – a drug 50 times more potent than heroin, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration. At the time, the White House called it a “wonderful humanitarian gesture”.

Authorities in China have taken some action since then, the report found: “ramped up investigations of known manufacturing sites, cracked down on websites selling illicit fentanyl, begun to enforce shipping rules and created special investigation teams.”