White House confirms China has stopped anti-drug cooperation
- Rahul Gupta, director of national drug control policy, says Beijing stopped talks after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan in August
- ‘We are working hard to … be able to have those conversations,’ Gupta says
Beijing has used US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan as a “pretext to step back from cooperation” on combating drug trafficking, the White House’s top drug policy official said on Wednesday.
Rahul Gupta, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said that requests to work with Beijing officials on stemming the smuggling of illicit narcotics – including fentanyl – into the US had stalled, and that the White House was trying to get China “back to the table”.
03:56
Addicted to fentanyl: how a drug from China is fuelling America’s opioid crisis
“I was disappointed when Beijing decided after Speaker Pelosi’s visit to stop all the conversations and the progress that was being worked on with the United States. We believe it was a pretext to step back from the cooperation,” Gupta said during a discussion of the opioid and overdose epidemic at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
“We are working hard to … be able to have those conversations,” Gupta said.
After Pelosi visited Taiwan and met with its elected officials in early August, Beijing’s included the ending of discussions about drug trafficking as part of its response, raising concerns in Washington. Beijing considers Taiwan a rogue province that will eventually unite with the mainland, by force if needed.
Beijing had for years been open to negotiations about ways to crack down on the illicit trade in China, a primary source of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals.