President Joe Biden’s deputies are delaying government action against Chinese-manufactured fentanyl in the hope of getting a climate deal, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) declared in an August 2 op-ed for Newsweek.
Congress has drafted legislation to clamp down on the drug flow that is killing at least 70,000 Americans a year, Rubio wrote, but:
There is a group of progressive activists — including some Biden administration insiders — who would delay these actions. Some frame drug legalization and “harm reduction” as the answers to all our problems. Others are not as naïve, but they believe a “climate deal” with Beijing is worth withholding sanctions on Chinese drug dealers.
The draft legislation includes the Combating Illicit Xylazine Act, the FEND Off Fentanyl Act, and the HALT Fentanyl Act which is designed to curb other fentanyl-like invented drugs, he said.
Rubio said he is also pushing “legislation to list fentanyl precursors as illicit drugs and sanction Chinese institutions that facilitate illegal drug transactions through money laundering.”
He wrote:
This is not a partisan issue for most Americans. Cartels, gangs, and mobs are flooding our streets with poison. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying as a result. If we don’t try to protect them, we aren’t worthy of being called public servants.
Strong action and sanctions against Chinese companies are a problem for influential lobbies in D.C., partly because China’s government can retaliate against investors who rely on China’s manufacturers or consumers.
On July 20, homeland security chief Alejandro Mayorkas claimed that the United States “needs” help from China to slow the flow of drugs from Mexico:
China bears responsibility. We need their assistance in interdicting the chemicals and pill presses that are going in volumes that don’t reflect legitimate use.
Mayorkas did not suggest the government would impose economic pressure on China.
Political pressure in D.C. has already minimized U.S. economic pressure on Mexico, where the drugs are manufactured from Chinese-supplied chemicals.
For example, on July 25, lower-level Biden officials announced a toothless deal over drug smuggling.
But a few days later, White House officials inked an agreement that rewards Mexico for regulating the flow of international migrants into the U.S. economy.
The migration agreement “suggests that the Biden administration has been willing to sacrifice a deal on the drug [smuggling] problem to get the migration deal that it wants,” Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Breitbart News.