China announces restrictions on chemicals after deal with Trump on fentanyl tariffs

It shows the back-and-forth nature of U.S.-Chinese cooperation on fentanyl over the years and lessens the recent tensions after Trump launched his campaign of tariffs, including those against the country that is the top exporter of pharmaceutical ingredients, such as the chemicals used to make fentanyl. “What the Trump administration has essentially agreed with Beijing is for Beijing to restart what it had been doing during the second part of 2024,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow focusing on the opioid crisis at the Brookings Institution. “For too long, (China) has enabled illicit fentanyl production in Mexico and elsewhere by subsidizing the export of the precursor chemicals needed to produce these deadly drugs and failing to prevent Chinese companies from selling these precursors to known criminal cartels,” the presidential statement said.