During an interview with CBS News on Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that we need greater cooperation from China on fentanyl, which has halted cooperation that has worked in the past, but “It’s not about pointing fingers.” And in some cases, Chinese firms ship fentanyl precursors to the wrong people by mistake.
CBS News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Margaret Brennan asked, “The other thing that you really emphasized was the need to talk about fentanyl, which is killing Americans. Do you believe that the Chinese state can really turn that up and turn that down?”
Blinken answered, “Yes. We need to see much greater cooperation when it comes to fentanyl. We’ve seen some of that in the past. In fact, a few years ago, China actually scheduled fentanyl, made it — put it on a prohibited list, and one result of that was that, actually, manufactured fentanyl that had been coming to the United States from China, that pretty much went to zero. What’s happened since, though, is that the chemicals that can be used to make fentanyl…those have been moving liberally to — primarily to Mexico, where it gets turned into fentanyl and then it winds up in the United States. So, part of the challenge is making sure that chemical manufacturers that are producing these precursors in China and then, in some cases, inadvertently sending it to the wrong people in Mexico or other places, sometimes intentionally, deliberately, that’s what’s got to stop. I made very clear to China that this is an area where we want and need to see real cooperation. … I believe this is an area where the United States and China can and must work together. It’s not about pointing fingers. It’s simply finding a way to cooperate.”
Brennan then asked, “I’ve had lawmakers in the U.S. say that this is done intentionally by the Chinese state. Do you believe that?”
Blinken responded, “So, all I can tell you is this: We’ve seen cooperation from them in the past and that’s made a difference. That halted, more or less, over the last few years. They have issues that they’ve raised to try to explain why they’re not doing as much as they can.”
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