The Fentanyl Scourge and the CCP

A May 14 Wall Street Journal article entitled “Bags of Cash From Drug Cartels Flood Teller Windows at U.S. Banks” reported that Chinese nationals directed a criminal network in Southern California that “handled some $50 million in proceeds from drug trafficking over four years.” According to the Journal, “Similar money-laundering operations operate in plain sight around the U.S., hiding the staggering returns which are the sole reason cross-border cartels smuggle the fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine and other illegal drugs consumed by millions of Americans.” Following that money and arresting and prosecuting the criminals is an important part of a holistic strategy to battle against the scourge of fentanyl. So is improved border security. But if U.S. leaders are hoping for cooperation from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership, they are bound to be disappointed.

Because CCP leaders have perfected surveillance of their population, it is reasonable to conclude that they have been deliberately abetting an effort to poison Americans with fentanyl, a drug that has killed more than 400,000 U.S. citizens in the past decade.

In his announcement concerning a temporary reduction of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent cited CCP leaders’ latest promise to cooperate on curtailing the trafficking of precursors for fentanyl from China to drug cartels that manufacture the drug and smuggle it across the Mexican and Canadian borders into the United States. But this is almost certainly just the latest in a series of lies aimed at delaying a concerted U.S. response or alleviating pressure associated with Trump Administration trade enforcement actions.

Consider the “report” I made to Xi Jinping during President Trump’s visit to Beijing in November 2017. I looked directly at Chairman Xi Jinping:

“Mr. Chairman, if I were a pessimist, I would say that progress on law enforcement and cyber is a great disappointment. But I want to be positive. So, we might focus on the many opportunities to improve and strengthen cooperation. We could begin with two easy objectives: the repatriation of over thirty-nine thousand Chinese nationals who have final orders of removal from the United States and the improvement of mutual legal assistance by simply responding to basic requests for evidence, such as bank records on cases involving transnational organized crime and narcotics trafficking. It is a priority for us that China stop the practice of sending so-called law enforcement teams to the United States to harass Americans. And we have the opportunity to deliver on a top priority for President Trump to end the Chinese manufacturing and distribution of the drug fentanyl and its precursor chemicals—a drug that killed over sixty thousand Americans last year. It is difficult for us to understand how your government, which has such a firm grasp on the activities of its people, is unable to stop drug manufacturing and trafficking. And finally, we have an opportunity to implement the cybercrime agreement made in 2015, especially ending the cyber-enabled theft of trade secrets and the activation of the hotline mechanism to improve coordination. Attorney General Sessions is looking forward to working on all these critical problems with your team. Consistent with President Trump’s guidance, we will judge progress by our actions and results rather than words. Thank you.”

Xi, who is usually stone-faced, betrayed a look of surprise at how direct I was. His only response was to thank me for what he described as my excellent briefing. But, as was the case with other attempts to form working groups with CCP officials, these comprehensive dialogues were doomed to fail.

For more on President Trump’s visit to China in November 2017, see At War with Ourselves pp. 258-264 and Battlegrounds pp. 89-99; 126-127.

Given their track record, it is unreasonable to assume that CCP leaders will make good on their latest promises to attenuate the scourge they helped create. But there is still hope for progress in the fight against fentanyl if the Trump Administration continues to take matters into its own hands through effective intelligence, vigorous law enforcement, targeted financial actions, and improved border security.