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Wang Baodong

Recently, the US government twice levied additional tariffs on Chinese imports on the pretext of the fentanyl issue; China firmly opposes this and is taking necessary countermeasures to defend its interests.
The unilateral imposition of additional tariffs by the United States will not only fail to resolve its own domestic fentanyl crisis, but also severely impact bilateral cooperation with China in the area of counternarcotics, significantly undermine the foundation of China-US trade and economic cooperation and cause serious damage to the multilateral trading system.
The fentanyl crisis is an issue for the US and the root cause lies in immense domestic demand for drugs like fentanyl and regulatory loopholes. China has been taking effective measures to assist the US in addressing the fentanyl issue on humanitarian grounds and out of friendly sentiment towards the American people.
China itself has put in place the toughest and most comprehensive counternarcotics policies in today’s world. In the absence of widespread domestic fentanyl abuse, China placed all fentanyl-related substances on a list of controlled substances upon the request of the US side as early as 2019, the first country in the world to do so.
Since then, no further notification has been received from the US regarding the seizure of such substances from China. According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), drug overdose deaths in the US dropped 24 per cent for the 12 months ending in September 2024.
In recent years, China has engaged in practical counternarcotics cooperation with the US in a broad-based way. Since the establishment of the China-US Counternarcotics Working Group in January 2024, the two countries have convened multiple high-level meetings to promote bilateral dialogue and cooperation in drug control and law enforcement.


The drug control agencies on both sides maintained daily hotline communication and held regular meetings to exchange information. Up to now, with more than 100 instances of information exchange, the two sides have achieved breakthrough progress in the collaborative investigations of multiple transnational cases.
All parties may gain a comprehensive understanding of China’s position, measures and achievements in this field from the newly released white paper, “Controlling Fentanyl-Related Substances – China’s Contribution”.
It is beyond comprehension that the US is not only ignoring China’s major efforts to address the fentanyl issue and failing to cherish the extensive cooperation provided by China, but also punishing China for helping and seeking to pressure and blackmail China with tariff hikes. This is intolerable.
It needs to be emphasised that the way out of the US fentanyl crisis is not by shifting the blame on to China, but reducing domestic demand for drugs, strengthening domestic regulation, making progress on domestic drug control and enhancing international law enforcement cooperation.
The US should cherish China’s goodwill and take concrete measures to maintain the hard-won positive momentum of China-US counternarcotics cooperation.




In the meantime, it should be pointed out that there are no winners in trade and tariff wars. Additional tariffs on China will ultimately harm the interests of American businesses and ordinary families, as well as the US’ international credibility. As a matter of fact, this is also the common view of many people of insight in the US.
In the 46 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, China-US trade volume has increased by more than 200 times, and the stock of two-way investment is about US$250 billion, bringing tangible benefits to the people of both countries and effectively promoting global economic development.
According to the latest data from the US Department of Agriculture, China is the largest export destination for US agricultural products, accounting for nearly one-fifth of the total, and the largest export market for US soybeans.
So far this year, I have visited several states in the US midwest, which are major producers of agricultural products such as soybeans and corn. Local farmers, small enterprise owners and other ordinary people told me that there are fewer cheap and affordable Chinese products in local supermarkets, while the pathways of exporting agricultural products to China have been narrowing.




People from our two countries share the same aspiration to create wealth through hard work. The US government’s attempts to politicise and weaponise trade and economic issues, and to set up barriers to normal trade, investment and economic cooperation with China, sacrifice the economic interests of ordinary American people; the US is ultimately shooting itself in the foot.
In addition, the US’ unilateral imposition of additional tariffs seriously violates the core rules of the World Trade Organization, disrupting the international trade order and the momentum for multilateral cooperation. China has filed a complaint against the US within the framework of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.
As a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson pointed out, bullying does not work on China. If war is what the US wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end. We hope that the US will return to the track of equal-footed dialogue as soon as possible, and resolve China-US economic and trade differences through mutually respectful consultation to achieve mutual benefits and win-win results.


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It is beyond comprehension that the US government is overlooking Chinese efforts to address the fentanyl issue and imposing more tariffs


It is beyond comprehension that the US government is overlooking Chinese efforts to address the fentanyl issue and imposing more tariffs.


US-China relations

World Trade Organization (WTO)

Fentanyl and other opioids

Diplomacy

US-China trade war: All stories

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Tariffs are no way to repay Chinese help with US fentanyl crisis

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}It is beyond comprehension that the US government is overlooking Chinese efforts to address the fentanyl issue and imposing more tariffs

It is beyond comprehension that the US government is overlooking Chinese efforts to address the fentanyl issue and imposing more tariffs