Trump’s tariffs on China might make the fentanyl crisis worse
Donald Trump has framed the fentanyl crisis blighting American streets as a border and crime problem – as opposed to a public health issue – with China at the centre of his plans to crack down on it.
The president-elect announced on Monday he would impose a 10 per cent tariff “above any additional tariffs” on imports from China until its government takes stronger action against fentanyl smuggling into the US. He also said he would slap a 25 per cent tariff on all products from Mexico and Canada for the same reason once he takes office.
“I have had many talks with China about the massive amounts of drugs, in particular fentanyl, being sent into the United States – But to no avail,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“Representatives of China told me that they would institute their maximum penalty, that of death, for any drug dealers caught doing this but, unfortunately, they never followed through, and drugs are pouring into our country, mostly through Mexico, at levels never seen before.”
China has clapped back, with commentators accusing Trump of making Beijing a “scapegoat” for the US’s fentanyl crisis and that his reasoning to impose tariffs was “far fetched”.
Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said: “The idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.”
Analysts say Trump’s supposed war on drugs is more likely to set off a trade war with the country’s biggest trading partners, and it will be US customers and businesses that end up footing the bill.
Professor Robert Elliott of University of Birmingham’s Business School said Trump may be using tariffs as a “negotiating ploy”.
“Questions remain such as how long the tariffs will be imposed for,” he told i. “If Canada and Mexico do clamp down then how long until the tariffs are removed? Same applies to China.
“Trump may also be using this as a threat to enforce “decoupling from China”, so if the EU/UK behave and move away from China then the tariffs may not be imposed.”
China is the dominant source of chemical precursors used by Mexican cartels to produce fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that kills about 100,000 Americans every year.
But India, Myanmar and other parts of south-east Asia are also sources for fentanyl precursor chemicals.
“If China cracks down on domestic precursor labs, that means increased business for dealers in those countries,” said Jeffrey Singer, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute think tank in Washington. He also pointed out that illegal drugs are largely smuggled by US citizens through legal border crossings.
Following Trump’s announcement, Chinese president Xi Jinping said China’s economy would continue to grow and develop in the long-term during a meeting with former Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong in Beijing on Tuesday, according to the state news agency Xinhua.
The Biden administration has been negotiating with China for the past year to crack down on illegal production and trafficking of fentanyl. In August, China expanded its list of controlled precursor chemicals, imposing stricter oversight over their production and sale.
“Technically, China had already agreed with the US (Biden Administration) to curb such exports, so it can do more now,” Professor Steve Tsang, director of the Soas China Institute, told i.
“It probably will if it can ward off the tariffs Trump has threatened. But if Trump imposes the promised 60 per cent tariff on Chinese imports, then Beijing will have no incentive to restrict its export of ingredients for fentanyl.”
China’s efforts so far have yielded positive but slow results, according to Reuters. US security officials are frustrated by the response and have called for tariffs to be used as means of exerting pressure on Beijing.
Trump is threatening to impose higher tariffs than the 7.5 per cent to 25 per cent levied on Chinese goods during his first term as president, Reuters reported, and he said previously that he would introduce tariffs in excess of 60 per cent.
“China already has a template for dealing with the previous US tariff policy,” China’s Global Times quoted Gao Lingyun, an analyst at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, as saying.
“Using counter-narcotics issues to increase tariffs on Chinese goods is untenable and unpersuasive.”
Experts at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank said Chinese and American law enforcement agencies needed to strengthen existing mechanisms to combat the issue and build on anti-money laundering efforts to combat the illicit money flow associated with the drug trade.
Ending drug trafficking may also be an impossible task given the strong demand in the US.
“An imposition of tariffs is not going to do anything regarding the flow of fentanyl,” Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert on global drug policy, told the New York Times.
“In fact, it might undermine the counternarcotics cooperation that the US and China have been doing in 2024 and that came after no cooperation for over two years.”
