A coalition of families of people who have died from fentanyl are demanding the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) investigate China’s role in the American opioid crisis, and requesting that tariffs be enacted on the country to combat it.
The group filed a petition to the office of U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai on Thursday under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 — which allows the U.S. to place sanctions on foreign countries that “violate U.S. trade agreements or engage in acts that are unjustifiable or unreasonable and burden U.S. commerce,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
Nazak Nikakhtar, an attorney representing the grieving families, told Reuters that an investigation and sanctions are “squarely” within the USTR’s legal right.
“China responds to economic pressure. We’re going to put economic pressure on China,” Nikakhtar, who is also a former Commerce Department official, said.
The House Joint Economic Committee found that the opioid crisis cost the U.S. nearly $1.5 trillion in 2020, a September 2022 report revealed.
An independent investigation by Reuters, published in July, revealed that Chinese chemical companies “openly sell fentanyl-making ingredients on the internet and ship them to the U.S. with ease.”
Journalists with the outlet ordered the multiple building blocks needed to create a whopping three million pills of the synthetic drug “at the tap” of a smartphone, the publication reported.
These Chinese suppliers routinely ship to Mexican cartels, with one Sinaloa-based fentanyl “cook” telling Reuters that “it’s like making chicken soup. … It’s mega-easy making that drug.”
Synthetic opioids caused the deaths of 81,083 Americans in 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in May, noting they were “primarily fentanyl” overdoses.
“There’s been so much devastation to our families,” said Thomas, a father who lost his daughter to a fentanyl-laced pill that she believed was a painkiller in 2018.
The petitioners recommended several trade countermeasures they want the U.S. to enact, including tariffs of at least $50 billion on Chinese goods and services and stopping the practice of Chinese shipments entering the U.S. via de minimis, a trade regulation that allows “low-value packages to enter the U.S. duty free and with minimal paperwork and inspections.”
A USTR spokesperson confirmed that the agency is reviewing the group’s petition, former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China Affairs Jeff Moon voiced skepticism.
Moon, who now advises businesses on China issues, told Reuters that the petition “appears to be more of an activist effort than a trade action.”
“If Trump is elected, his preferred remedy is tariffs, so maybe they’re appealing to that,” Moon concluded.
The former president already spoke in favor of enforcing another tariff of up to 60 percent on goods from China at a September campaign rally in Savannah, Georgia, Breitbart News reported.
The findings from the House Joint Economic Committee, Reuters, and the group of families all corroborate claims made against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in New York Times bestselling author Peter Schweizer’s new book, Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans.
Included in the many bombshells revealed by Schweizer are how the Biden family got $5 million from the business partner of the “White Wolf,” the head of a CCP gang involved in drug trafficking.
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