China Is Smuggling Fentanyl to US Through Venezuela, Trump Says

[Da Lat]

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China Is Smuggling Fentanyl to US Through Venezuela, Trump Says


The U.S. president said he plans to raise the issue with Chinese leader Xi Jinping next week.







Catherine Yang
10/23/2025|Updated: 10/23/2025

U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed on Oct. 23 that China is smuggling fentanyl into the United States through Venezuela to bypass U.S. and Mexican controls.

“They are doing that, yes, but they are paying right now 20 percent tariff because of fentanyl,” Trump told reporters.

Trump said it is one of the issues he will bring up with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping at their bilateral meeting next week.

“The first question I’m going to be asking them about is fentanyl,” he said.

Trump said that with the tariffs on China, which will rise by an additional 100 percent on Nov. 1 if no deal is made, the fentanyl operation will no longer be sustainable for China.

“They make $100 million sell[ing] fentanyl into our country ... they lose $100 billion with the 20 percent tariff. So it’s not a good business proposition,” Trump said. “They pay a very big penalty for doing that, and I don’t think they want to be doing it.”


Trump’s meeting with Xi will come at the tail end of his Asia tour, for which he is departing on Oct. 24.

Earlier this year, FBI Director Kash Patel told lawmakers he had spoken to counternarcotics authorities in China and urged them to restrict exports of more fentanyl precursor chemicals.

The Chinese Ministry of Public Security in August added seven chemicals to an export control list, three of them central to producing fentanyl. The restrictions went into effect Sept. 1.

The United States has determined that China is the main supplier of the deadly illicit drug in the United States, and Trump in an executive order on Feb. 1 imposed initial tariffs on China for its “central role” in the fentanyl crisis.

In the order, Trump noted that despite a long history of discussions over the years, Chinese regime officials “have failed to follow through with the decisive actions needed to stem the flow of precursor chemicals.”

According to the order, in addition to subsidizing and incentivizing chemical companies to create and export fentanyl precursors, the regime has also provided “support and safe haven” for transnational criminal organizations that launder the related profits.

“The CCP does not lack the capacity to severely blunt the global illicit opioid epidemic; it simply is unwilling to do so,” the order reads.
In recent weeks, Trump has authorized nine strikes on vessels suspected of trafficking drugs.

“Narco-terrorists intending to bring poison to our shores will find no safe harbor anywhere in our hemisphere,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said in a post about the latest strike on Oct. 21.

According to allegations contained in published indictments, Chinese individuals have been deeply involved in Mexican cartel activity. Chinese fugitive Zhi Dong Zhang, recently arrested in Cuba, allegedly directed and managed a cocaine and fentanyl ring and oversaw both Chinese and Mexican ring members.


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From The Epoch Times
Link: https://www.theepochtimes.com/china/...ner&src_cmp=gp





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