China’s Hubei province arrests 7, shuts websites in fentanyl crackdown
BEIJING — A Chinese province has launched a crackdown on the fentanyl trade — a contentious issue in U.S.-China relations — by arresting seven people and shutting down more than 200 websites in recent months, state media reported Thursday.
The announcement comes shortly after US President Donald Trump announced he would postpone a highly anticipated trip to China due to the war in Iran. Trump has used the tariffs to try to pressure China to do more to stem the export of fentanyl precursors — the chemical ingredients in the synthetic opioid that are responsible for tens of thousands of overdose deaths each year in the United States.
The Hubei Daily News reported in an online article that a fentanyl precursor task force, established in December, had investigated 22 cases in Hubei province through February. In addition to the seven people arrested, a dozen other people have been subjected to “coercive measures,” which can include summons or detention. Four companies were sanctioned, the newspaper said.
The official Xinhua news agency published a similar report. He said the task force was established to follow a directive from China’s Ministry of Public Security. The operation followed an agreement by China in late October to take steps to stop the precursor trade in exchange for halving fentanyl-related tariffs on US imports from China, to 10%.
In one case, information from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency helped police in Wuhan, the provincial capital, discover that a company was selling precursor chemicals as well as stimulants, the Hubei Daily News reported. The person who controls the company was arrested in early December with the cooperation of police in another province, Shandong, the newspaper said.
Two people were arrested in another case in which the suspects allegedly set up shell companies to sell drugs and chemicals that could be used to manufacture drugs abroad, according to the report.
Trump, citing the fentanyl issue, imposed a 10% tariff on China shortly after taking office last year, then increased it to 20%. It imposed additional tariffs on China and other countries starting in April. China has retaliated with its own tariffs in an escalating back-and-forth. The two sides announced a one-year truce and an agreement to reduce fentanyl-specific tariffs to 10% after Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea in late October.
Plans were underway for a second in-person meeting in Beijing around the start of next month when Trump said earlier this week that his administration was working with China to reschedule the visit and that he would go there in about five or six weeks, or the end of April.
