OPINION:
China, our enemy, is a double-crossing liar about its U.S.-bound killer drugs.
The Chinese Communist Party, essentially a criminal organization, invests an entire supply chain into shipping opioid chemicals to the notorious Mexican drug cartels, helping them make and smuggle fentanyl across the border.
And then a shameless China denies it.
On Feb. 1, President Trump called their bluff by imposing new tariffs to stop the flow.
China is inflicting as much pain and turmoil on America as possible without crossing the line into outright war. It hacks and steals from us, embeds malware into our electric and water infrastructure, sets up fake police stations, buys American farmland, spies everywhere (Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell’s girlfriend was a Chinese spy), takes over the Panama Canal and spreads social media spyware.
But with fentanyl, China’s game is to kill us. Nearly 80,000 or so in the United States die each year via overdose.
The history.
In November 2023, President Biden, whose family raked in millions of dollars from corrupt Chinese, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who uses the murderous Mao Zedong as his model, met in San Francisco.
Mr. Biden claimed he reached a brand new, better-than-ever deal with Mr. Xi to curtail the fentanyl market.
Syrupy statements followed.
“It’s going to save lives, and I appreciate President Xi’s commitment on this issue,” Mr. Biden said.
Mr. Xi said, “China sympathizes deeply with the American people, especially the young, for the sufferings that fentanyl has inflicted upon them.”
Communists lie (“gaslight,” as they say on Chinese-run TikTok) as a function of totalitarian control. But even this Xi fakery was astounding.
First, President Trump announced Feb. 1 new tariffs on China specifically because of the country’s lucrative fentanyl dollars. If Mr. Xi had lived up to his San Francisco pledge, there would be no tariff.
How committed China is to killing us comes to light a month before the San Francisco summit.
To the Biden administration’s credit, the Treasury Department issued a detailed narrative on how China’s pharmaceutical companies feed the Mexican cartels. These are not rogue companies. They could not possibly be in a long alliance with Mexican criminals without the Communist Party’s OK and direction.
Treasury began the report with the statement that it has “designated 28 individuals and entities involved with the international proliferation of illicit drugs, including a China-based network responsible for the manufacturing and distribution of ton quantities of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and MDMA [ecstasy] precursors.”
Got that? A “Chinese network” pumping out horrible killer drugs.
Now, who makes up this network?
One syndicate leader is named Du Changgen, a Chinese industrialist.
“Du Changgen oversees a large group of sales teams based in China whose accounts include the cartels,” Treasury said.
Treasury added, “The Syndicate is the source of supply for dozens of narcotics traffickers in the United States, dark web vendors, virtual currency money launderers, and Mexico-based criminal organizations such as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).”
Mr. Changgen owns the China-based Hebei Xiuna Trading Co., the Shanghai Jarred Industrial Co., the Hanhong Pharmaceutical Technology Co. and the Hebei Guanlang Biotechnology Co.
Chinese firms also provide the machinery to make counterfeit pills.
As I stated, it is impossible that these Chinese pharmaceutical giants are making and shipping killer drugs to Mexico without the Chinese Communist Party’s blessing. Impossible.
The Xi Jinping fentanyl gaslighting is chronic. It happened before the Biden San Francisco dance.
In December 2018, Mr. Xi made the exact same promise to none other than President Trump, who called it a “game changer.”
A few months later, CNN ran this story: “China Announces New Crack Down in Win For U.S. President Trump.”
Let’s see. In March 2023, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) put out an alert that talked about a relatively new American killer — “Tranq” — a tranquilizer for large farm animals that China was making available online for a deadly mix with fentanyl.
“The Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco Cartel in Mexico, using chemicals largely sourced from China, are primarily responsible for the vast majority of the fentanyl that is being trafficked in communities across the United States,” the DEA said.
Does that sound like Mr. Xi kept his promise to Mr. Trump five years earlier? So much for Mr. Xi’s tears. Later that year came the Treasury report, which named names.
On Feb. 1, Mr. Trump acknowledged that his 2018 deal was a double cross.
“Chinese officials have failed to take the actions necessary to stem the flow of precursor chemicals to known criminal cartels and shut down money laundering by transnational criminal organizations,” the White House said.
I asked the DEA and CIA whether they had noticed any downturn in Chinese fentanyl trafficking. I got no response.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo knows the truth. “The Chinese Communist Party could stop the fentanyl shipments if they wanted to,” he posted on X on Feb. 3. “They haven’t. President Trump is right to impose costs on them.”
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.