Biden expected to announce deal with China over fentanyl

President Biden is expected to announce a controversial deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping aimed at slowing the deadly flood of fentanyl across the United States.

The two leaders are tipped to announce a deal as they meet Wednesday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in San Francisco, one of the cities most blighted by what has become the deadliest drug in the US.

“We’re hoping to see some progress on that issue this coming week,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Monday, ahead of the meeting.

“That could then open the door to further cooperation on other issues where we aren’t just managing things, but we’re actually delivering tangible results,” he added.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it is willing to carry out anti-drug trafficking measures with the US on the basis of “equality and mutual respect,” according to Bloomberg.

Under the terms of the agreement, China would crack down on chemical companies making the compounds used to produce fentanyl, sources familiar with the negotiations told Bloomberg.

In exchange, Biden would lift restrictions on China’s Forensic Police Institute — which the Commerce Department restricted from accessing US technology in 2020 over allegations it was involved in the repression of Uyghurs.

However, some experts warn the deal may fall apart if the Biden administration continues to be critical of Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist Party — while many Republicans see it as part of Biden making “repeated concessions” to Beijing.

The Chinese embassy in Washington has also criticized the move, with a spokesman saying in May: “The US sanctions against Chinese companies and citizens will add more obstacles to China-US counter-narcotics cooperation.”

Chinese businesses are supplying Mexican drug cartels with the chemicals used to make fentanyl — an opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine.

It is the deadliest drug in the United States today, with more than 150 people dying from overdoses related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl each day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Such overdose deaths increased more than seven times between 2015 and 2021, the National Center for Health Statistics says.

The drug problem has become a burden on several American cities, including San Francisco, where the upcoming summit will be held.

Mayor London Breed even said she blames fentanyl for the decline of her city and for exacerbating the city’s homeless crisis.

“Fentanyl has really devastated our city like no other drug we’ve ever experienced within my lifetime,” she told Bloomberg.

“I would ask him [Xi] to work with the US and to ensure that the resources that are being sent out of China, that come into either the US or Mexico are cut off to the fullest extent possible.”

But experts warn the deal may fall apart if the Biden administration continues to be critical of Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist Party.

“China’s agreements have an unstated condition: Void if you criticize Xi and the Communist Party,” said Derek Scissors, senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

“If the Biden administration isn’t pro-China in 2024, enforcement of a fentanyl deal will fade away.”

Republicans on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party have also cautioned Biden against continuing his “repeated concessions” to Beijing at his upcoming one-on-one with the Chinese president.

They listed 10 demands they suggest Biden make of Xi “before the end of the APEC summit.”

Those demands include the release of all US citizens wrongfully detained in China, an end to “all near-collisions and unsafe intercepts” with American forces at sea and in the air and suspension of a key program in the PRC’s forced-labor programs in Xinjiang.”

Other demands include Xi allowing “all exit-banned US citizens to leave [China] immediately”; establishing “‘know-your-customer requirements” on Chinese shipments of fentanyl ingredients; ceasing “all military operations in Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone,” which Beijing does not respect; and to stop “all present and future harassment of Philippine” ships in the South China Sea.