[국제]“110,000 lives will be lost in the U.S. in 2022… No. 1 cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 49.”

The fentanyl problem, which U.S. President-elect Donald Trump presented as a reason for imposing an additional 10% tariff on China, is so serious that it is being mentioned as a national security threat in the United States.

Fentanyl, the so-called ‘zombie drug’, is a type of opioid, a narcotic painkiller, and is 50 times more powerful than heroin.

In the United States, it is estimated that about 110,000 people will die from fentanyl overdose in 2022 alone, and it is the leading cause of death among people aged 18 to 49. Fentanyl has been introduced into the United States in earnest about 10 years ago through international mail from China.

Currently, Chinese companies are mainly supplying the chemical raw materials needed to make fentanyl to drug trafficking organizations in Mexico rather than exporting them directly to the United States, and the U.S. government is aware that fentanyl and raw materials made in Mexico from Chinese raw materials are being distributed to the United States across the border. It is a judgment.

For this reason, fentanyl has been a major obstacle in U.S.-China relations for years, and previous U.S. administrations also tried to pressure China to resolve the issue.

President-elect Trump declared an opioid public health emergency in October 2017 during his first term, and also called for stronger regulations on fentanyl during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in December 2018.

President Xi, who was under pressure from the U.S. with tariffs, agreed to designate fentanyl as a controlled substance while accepting several of Trump’s demands in an attempt to avoid an all-out trade war.

This means that anyone selling fentanyl to the United States could face the maximum penalty in China, the White House explained at the time.

When President-elect Trump announced plans to add 10% tariffs on China on the 25th local time, he said, “Chinese representatives told me that they would impose the maximum penalty of death on any drug dealer caught sending drugs to the United States, but unfortunately they did not follow through.” The claim appears to have originated in this context.

Since then, China has begun to cooperate with the United States, but has used the fentanyl issue as leverage in the relationship between the two countries, including suspending cooperation when relations are not good.

As US-China relations worsened due to the ‘reconnaissance balloon’ issue, cooperation became more difficult, but the opportunity for resumption was the San Francisco summit between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November last year.

At the meeting, China agreed to directly crack down on chemical companies that manufacture fentanyl raw materials to prevent fentanyl from flowing into the United States from China through Mexico.

Afterwards, the United States formed a working group to cooperate on drug issues, and China’s Ministry of Public Security announced in August that it would begin controlling three types of fentanyl precursors.

Last June, China launched a crackdown on fentanyl precursors and, following a tip from U.S. intelligence, arrested a money launderer believed to be working for a Mexican drug cartel.

The Biden administration has welcomed China’s efforts and has pointed to fentanyl as an area in which the U.S. and China can cooperate while competing.

The reason why China countered on the 26th after President-elect Trump’s announcement of additional tariffs by saying, “China and the United States have achieved remarkable results through extensive and in-depth drug interdiction cooperation” is interpreted as having in mind the achievements of cooperation with the Biden administration. It works.

“China hopes to continue anti-drug cooperation with the United States based on equality, mutual benefit, and mutual respect,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular briefing on the same day. He also said, “We have to maintain the good situation we achieved with great difficulty.”

China claims that it is a country with the most stringent and thorough anti-drug policy in the world, and that fentanyl is a problem for the United States.

The New York Times (NYT) said on the 26th, “China has long avoided responsibility for the fentanyl crisis in the United States by blaming the policies of the U.S. government,” and added, “China also pointed to Britain’s exploitative opium trade in the 19th century, calling China a drug dealer.” “He is being portrayed as a victim,” the report said.

In the United States, it is believed that President-elect Trump brought up the tariffs to pressure China to take a stronger response to the fentanyl problem, but there are also concerns that it may make it difficult to obtain cooperation from China.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) also pointed out on the 27th local time, “There is a risk that the resumption of the trade war will force China to close one of the most productive diplomatic channels (between the United States and China).”

YTN Kim Jandi (jandi@ytn.co.kr)

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