6 hours Ago By Frank Fang
A bipartisan legislation aimed at stopping the flow of fentanyl and its precursors into the United States was recently introduced in the Senate, with the aim of holding Chinese entities accountable for exporting these drugs. Sens. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.
H.), chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee respectively, introduced the “Break Up Suspicious Transactions of Fentanyl Act” on March 6. The legislation does not link to tariffs but aims to give the U.
S. president more authority to impose sanctions on China’s state-owned or state-controlled entities, including financial institutes, for contributing to fentanyl trafficking. “With the support of the Chinese government, China remains the single greatest source of fentanyl and synthetic opioid precursors to Mexican cartels,” Risch said in a statement.
“These opioids then come across our southern border and kill over 100,000 Americans every year. This needs to end and the perpetrators need to be held accountable.” Shaheen said the United States should “use every tool at our disposal to cut off the flow of fentanyl.
” She added that legislation will strengthen the United States’ ability to “hold Chinese entities accountable and disrupt the supply chains enabling this crisis.” The secretary of state and the attorney general would also be required to provide a classified briefing to the appropriate congressional committees on U.S.
efforts to obtain China’s approval to establish U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) offices in the two Chinese cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou.
If enacted, the legislation would encourage the Trump administration to identify individuals and entities in China engaged in the production and trafficking of the drugs, and target Chinese financial institutions that enable the laundering of the drugs’ proceeds, according to the press release. Two House bills—the Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act (H.R.
747) and the Stop Fentanyl Money Laundering Act (H.R.1577)—now await a House vote after advancing out of the Financial Services Committee on March 6.
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