Biden admin touts progress on working with China to combat fentanyl crisis, but experts say it's premature

• The Biden administration is seeing progress in its anti-narcotics partnership with China, but experts warn it's still too early to call it effective.
• Data on the progress of the Biden administration's partnership with China on the fentanyl crisis is sparse, and Beijing is not a very reliable ally, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
• “The current administration has not even taken the lead to address the seriousness of the threat … It's not serious,” Derek Maltz, former chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Special Operations Division, told the DCNF (DEA).

The Biden administration sees progress in its counter-narcotics partnership with Beijing, but national security and foreign policy experts believe it is too early to say whether the partnership is effective or not.

The Biden administration established an anti-narcotics “work group” in early February with China, the country mainly responsible to ship fentanyl and opioid-related substances to the US and Mexico in an attempt to crack down on the growing epidemic. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), one of the agencies in charge of the task force, considers it progress, progress China is being pressured to stop the flow of these substances, but experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that it would be premature to claim victory because not enough information is yet available and Beijing is not a partner of trust

“If they're bullish, I'm bearish,” Erin Walsh, senior fellow for international affairs at the Heritage Foundation's Center for Asian Studies, told DCNF. “If they think things are happening, you have to look at the facts, and even people in the administration had said when this was created, 'Well, we don't know, we'll have to see what's going on.' If they stop sending the precursors, we'll know. If they stop sending the supply of tablet presses and the materials that go with them, that will be the proof of the pudding.”

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Xiaohong on Sunday and discussed progress is being made in curbing the trafficking of fentanyl and precursor chemicals, according to a to read of the meeting The two agreed to “commitments regarding continued law enforcement cooperation, bilateral technical exchanges between scientists and other experts, precursor chemical programming, and the promotion of multilateral cooperation.”

In Austria, I met with the State Councilor and Minister of Public Security of the PRC to discuss how we can work together to fight the scourge of fentanyl and save lives at home and around the world. pic.twitter.com/ijJ5OyK7ZO

— Secretary Alexander Mayorkas (@SecMajorkas) February 20, 2024

The House dismissed Mayorkas on February 13 for the accusations that he had abdicated his responsibilities and that he had made deceptivestatements to Congress. Trusting Mayorkas to carry out his duties on the narcotics task force with Beijing would be misguided, Derek Maltz, former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) Special Operations Division, told DCNF. .

“The American public cannot trust Secretary Mayorkas. He has lied repeatedly. He has been impeached by the House. He is telling the American public that the border is closed or that he has some operational control of the border, and all the Americans with brains understand that this is a blatant lie,” Maltz told the DCNF. “So everything Mayorkas said should be rejected.”

There is also little data available to support conflicting claims of progress in pushing Beijing to curb the trafficking of opioids and fentanyl to the US and Mexico.

The number of deaths related to fentanyl and opioids in the US cross more than 80,000 in 2021, the last year that data was made available, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. There were 129.7 million fentanyl convulsions on the southern border in January, which was more than 100 million more than in November, when China first agreed work with the US to address the crisis.

It's also risky to trust Beijing, Walsh and Maltz told the DCNF. China has it evaded responsibility for the fentanyl and opioid crisis, albeit primarily responsible to traffic these substances and their precursors into the US, Mexico and other countries around the world, and the US has been too “slow to respond,” Maltz said.

“China has begun a chemical bombing campaign in America, and fentanyl is just one part of it,” Maltz told the DCNF, noting that other powerful opioids such as isotonitazene, methazine, protonitazene and xylazine they are being trafficked out of China and into the US

“We have a constant attack on our country to destabilize our communities and our future generation. So they are not credible. They have a no-holds-barred war on this country,” he said.

China is a country of secret and often evades transparency about its intentions. The FBI he concluded that the espionage and the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) counterintelligence efforts are “a serious threat to the economic well-being and democratic values ​​of the United States.”

Beijing evaded the truth when it did denied its role in the COVID-19 pandemic and withheld information that the virus was spreading within its population and outside the continent, according to Walsh.

“China is responsible for killing 1.1 million Americans with COVID and the cover-up,” Walsh told the DCNF. “Because if you think we can trust them, think again. We can't trust them.”

Addressing the fentanyl crisis in the US and the rise of synthetic drugs globally is a challenge that requires a strong and coordinated global response. The US is working with its counterparts in the PRC to stop the illicit flow of precursor chemicals fueling this crisis. pic.twitter.com/OGx33jceYT

— State Department (@StateDept) January 31, 2024

Walsh also expressed concern that the Biden administration would step up penalties against the Institute of Forensic Sciences of China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) in November in exchange for China cracking down on fentanyl trafficking. The MPS Institute of Forensic Sciences has been accused of human rights abuses and aiding Beijing's effort to persecute the Uighur religious minorities in China and East Asia.

“It was a shock that [the Biden administration] would have lifted these sanctions just to be able to speak [with Beijing]. I mean, it's impressive,” Walsh told the DCNF. “It was very much a slap in the face of his whole statement about human rights and concern for … the Uyghurs and the genocide and everything. It's extraordinary that they do.”

One positive of the task force is that many people involved are likely well-intentioned and looking to make real change, Maltz said, but he also expressed little hope that the group will be effective under the leadership of the Biden administration.

“The current administration has not even taken the lead to address the seriousness of the threat. … It's not serious,” Maltz told the DCNF.

Maltz has worked with thousands of families who have been and are still affected by the fentanyl and opioid epidemic. Addressing the issue should not be about taking political sides, he said, but addressing the fact that the crisis is bleeding the country.

“This is not a red or blue issue,” Maltz told the DCNF. “It's a red, white and blue theme.”

The number of overdose In the United States, the result of fentanyl and opioid use has approximately quadrupled since 2010, from approximately 21,000 to more than 80,000.

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