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23-12-2024
WASHINGTON/ BEIJING: Advisors to the Republican president-elect’s transition team are advocating a much more aggressive posture towards Beijing over fentanyl than the one adopted by Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.
Already, Trump is signaling that to stem the flow of narcotics he will resort to his weapon of choice: tariffs.
In posts on Monday on Truth Social, his social network, he promised additional 10% tariffs on goods from China, and 25% duties on merchandise from Mexico and Canada. Trump claimed these nations have not taken strong enough action to stop illicit drugs, particularly fentanyl, from entering the United States. He said his many talks with China about stopping the flow of drugs were “to no avail.”
Trump’s advisors are likewise pushing for US sanctions on Chinese financial institutions allegedly linked to the fentanyl trade. Trump will be the ultimate decider.
China is the dominant source of chemical precursors used by Mexican cartels to produce fentanyl, while Chinese money launderers have become key players in the international drug trade, US authorities say. The Biden administration has been negotiating with Beijing for the past year to crack down on both. Diplomacy has yielded promising but modest results so far. That has frustrated some U.S. security officials and China hawks who say the US must ratchet up the pressure to get Beijing’s leadership to act.
“When you don’t do those things, then you’re a doormat,” said Steve Yates, a China expert and former national security official in the George W. Bush administration. Yates, who is not formally involved with the president-elect’s transition team, has advised Trump’s circle on fentanyl policy. Over the past decade, more than 400,000 Americans have died of synthetic opioid overdoses, including Yates’ daughter, who died last year.
Yates and others counseling the Trump team say one of the quickest and surest ways for Washington to get Beijing’s attention is to sanction Chinese banks doing business with money launderers and corrupt chemical sellers.
Foreign banks hit with US sanctions can’t engage with American financial institutions or access the US dollar, severely curtailing their ability to transact business internationally, according to Edward Fishman, a sanctions expert at Columbia University. He said Washington can also freeze US assets held in sanctioned banks.
It’s a powerful weapon that has been wielded against financial institutions in countries of some US adversaries such as Iran and Russia, but never against banks in Mexico and China tied to drug trafficking, according to David Asher, a top former US anti-money laundering official who helped target the finances of the Islamic State terrorist group.
“You need to hit all the bankers. It’s sort of basic,” said Asher, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.
Asher formulated a preliminary plan circulating in Trump transition circles that calls for a whole-of-government task force incorporating all aspects of US diplomatic, law enforcement and financial power to address the fentanyl crisis.
Parts of the plan, shared with media, call for criminal indictments of major Chinese and Mexican financial institutions allegedly laundering money for the cartels; mass sanctions on Chinese companies and people implicated in the fentanyl trade; beefed-up bounties on most-wanted traffickers; cyber warfare against Mexican cartels; and a US intelligence agency focus on fentanyl that’s commensurate with the war on terrorist organizations. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington cited numerous steps that China has taken to prevent illegal production, trafficking and abuse of fentanyl since talks with the Biden administration resumed. (Int’l News Desk)
