US and China clash over fentanyl and tariffs at global drugs meeting

The United States and China traded barbs at a ⁠UN drugs meeting on ⁠Monday, with Washington accusing Beijing of ⁠failing to stop sales of precursor chemicals for fentanyl and China dismissing the allegation as false while calling the US irresponsible.

The exchange, delivered in separate statements at the UN’s annual Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting in Vienna, underscored tensions ‌between the two countries over illicit drugs and tariffs, with their leaders due to meet in China at the end of the month.

“We know where the chemical precursors [for fentanyl] are coming from. They are manufactured by the millions of tonnes in China,” Sara Carter, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said ⁠as she delivered the US statement.

“We know that China’s weak export controls and lax enforcement allow ‌its chemical industry to foster friendships with the [drug] cartels. At the same time, China’s overly effective controls over rare earth minerals wreak havoc on legitimate ‌industries.”

Under an agreement struck in South Korea last year between President Donald Trump ⁠and his Chinese ⁠counterpart Xi Jinping, the US agreed to trim tariffs on China in exchange for Beijing cracking down on the ‌illicit fentanyl trade, resuming US soybean purchases and keeping rare earth exports flowing.

‘We have a deal’: Trump claims breakthrough after ‘12 out of 10’ talks with Xi Jinping

‘We have a deal’: Trump claims breakthrough after ‘12 out of 10’ talks with Xi Jinping

The US Supreme Court last month invalidated a ‌10 per cent fentanyl-related ‌tariff Trump had imposed on China and others under an emergency statute. The Trump administration ‌has told Beijing it expects to reimpose that levy under a different law, a US official ⁠said.