China says fentanyl issue is responsibility of the United States
A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) chemist checks confiscated powder containing fentanyl at the DEA Northeast Regional Laboratory on October 8, 2019 in New York. According to US government data, about 32,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses in 2018. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse
BEIJING — The responsibility of tackling the fentanyl issue in the United States lies within the U.S. itself, China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday, rejecting the punitive tariffs Washington imposed on Beijing for not stemming the inflow.
China has repeatedly said fentanyl is a U.S. issue and the tariffs imposed on China because of that are unreasonable, said Lin Jian, a ministry spokesperson, when asked at a regular news conference if fentanyl would be discussed in future trade talks.
Trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies have eased as both sides pledged to sharply lower tariffs on each other’s goods following talks in Switzerland over the weekend.
READ: Trump’s fentanyl tariffs hold wider political aims — analysts
But Washington did not remove the 20% tariffs it imposed on Chinese goods as it said that Beijing had not done enough to stop the fentanyl epidemic in the U.S.
