In imposing taxes, or tariffs, on imports from Mexico, Canada and China. Trump says those countries have failed to stem the trafficking of fentanyl into the U.S., among other issues. The governments in those nations all say they have cooperated on the matter, and Trump said Thursday that he had postponed tarriffs for a month on most goods from Mexico following a talk with the country's president.
The legislation was introduced Thursday by Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the committee's top Democrat.
Risch called China "the single greatest source of fentanyl and synthetic opioid precursors to Mexican cartels” and he accused the Chinese government of supporting the activity.
“These opioids then come across our southern border and kill over 100,000 Americans every year. This needs to end and the perpetrators need to be held accountable,” Risch said.
Shaheen said the U.S. should “use every tool at our disposal to cut off the flow of fentanyl."
She said that China is “the primary supplier of fentanyl precursors fueling this epidemic, and it has not done enough to curb the export of these chemicals to Mexican transnational criminal groups who seek to traffic fentanyl into the U.S.”
In the U.S., the Drug Enforcement Administration found that fentanyl precursors and equipment to manufacture pills flowed from China to labs in Mexico, which made fentanyl powder and pills to be smuggled in. The DEA said drug money was laundered through Chinese underground banks.
