During President Biden’s meeting with Chinese leader Xi, Xi agreed to curb the fentanyl trade.
As former CIA operative Andrew Bustamante pointed out, Xi came just shy of admitting to weaponizing the fentanyl trade.
But we’ve heard this get tuff talk before when then President Trump got Xi to commit to a crackdown to include the execution of exporters. The net result was the continuing growth of deaths due to the drug during his term in office.
As I explore in the Shadow Tier series, everyone from Wolf, Parker, and Kennedy to the President of the United States knows we can disrupt precursors and drug routes. We can take billions of dollars of drugs out of circulation, and it does nothing to stem the real issue – the American public’s demand.
From what I can find it appears that President Biden wants to make some minor adjustments to policy and help users with testing kits.
Former President Trump takes a more aggressive stance. Secure the border. Impose a total Naval embargo on cartels. Order DOD to inflict max damage on cartel leadership and operations. Designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Choke off their access to the global financial system. Get cooperation with neighboring governments (read Mexico) to dismantle cartels. And ask congress to ensure drug smugglers and traffickers can get the death penalty.
What do you think it will take to start making a difference?
Additional reading from the NY Post
Federal data from 2019 indicate about 80% of offenders whose crimes involved synthetic opioids that year were busted for smuggling fentanyl rather than closely related substances.
CDC data on drug overdose deaths does not say whether fentanyl, a related compound, or both were detected, or if not enough information was available.
Preliminary data show that about 76,000 Americans died of synthetic opioids in 2022 — an all-time record up from about 72,000 in 2021 and 58,000 in 2020.
The CDC projects that monthly deaths from synthetic opioids continued to hit new monthly highs in the first half of 2023.
Xi’s commitment to halt exports has been met with skepticism — in part because former President Donald Trump boasted that he had convinced the Chinese leader to impose a severe crackdown including the execution of exporters, only for overdose deaths to continue to rise during his presidency.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said at a briefing Monday that “[Xi] has said he was going to be personally responsible for stemming the flow of these chemicals out of China, and we’re grateful for that.”
“That’s going to take a little bit of time as he goes back to Beijing and puts those processes in place — those law enforcement actions,” Kirby added.
Biden also urged Congress to approve $1.2 billion for fentanyl-screening equipment as part of a larger funding request in which he is seeking $14.3 billion to finance Israel’s war with Hamas and $61.4 billion to back Ukraine in its war with Russia.