THE DEADLY DRUGS THAT'S COMPLICATING US-CHINA TRADE

 The fentanyl crisis is the “US’s problem,” Chinese officials have repeatedly said, and China has already done “tremendous work” to address the issue.

“We stand ready for practical cooperation with the US based on equality and mutual respect. That said, we firmly oppose the US pressuring, threatening and blackmailing China under the pretext of the fentanyl issue,” a spokesperson said in March, after Trump’s fentanyl tariffs were raised to 20% on all Chinese imports into the US.

 But as those tariffs remain in place months later and, despite a truce de-escalating other duties, Beijing is signaling its paying attention to the issue – and may be prepared to do more.

China late last month announced it will add two more fentanyl precursors to its list of controlled substances – an expected step that brought it in line with international regulations, which its diplomats presented as a mark of “active participation” in global drug control.

Days earlier, Chinese authorities also extended control over another class of drug known as nitazenes – powerful synthetic opioids raising alarm among global health officials. The same day, Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong told US Ambassador to China David Perdue that Beijing was open to strengthening “practical cooperation” on drug control.

The Trump administration blames China for “sustaining” the influx into the US of fentanyl, a lab-made, synthetic opioid dozens of times more potent than heroin. Abuse of the drug and its analogues has fueled a drug overdose crisis in the US, killing tens of thousands of Americans annually, though those numbers saw a significant drop last year.

 As US-China ties have chafed on everything from technology to China’s militarization of the South China Sea, few issues have appeared more personal to American leaders than China’s role as a producer of the drugs and chemicals fueling an opioid crisis in the US.

Name: Hannah Bortiokor Laryea

ID number: BABJ28057