By Michael Martina
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday proposed three bills aimed at cracking down China’s role in the U.S. fentanyl crisis, with measures that would set up a U.S. task force to disrupt narcotics trafficking and pave the way for sanctions on Chinese entities.
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, U.S. authorities say.
The proposed legislation would help hold China’s ruling Communist Party (CCP) accountable for “directly fueling the fentanyl crisis through its state subsidies of precursors,” said the House of Representatives’ select committee on China, on which all of the sponsors of the bills sit.
One bill, The CCP Fentanyl Sanctions Act introduced by Democratic Representative Jake Auchincloss, would codify authorities for the U.S. to cut off Chinese companies from the U.S. banking system, including vessels, ports and online marketplaces that “knowingly or recklessly” facilitate shipment of illicit synthetic narcotics.
“This is state-sponsored poisoning of the American people,” Auchincloss said at an event introducing the legislation. “The genesis of this is squarely on the mainland of the People’s Republic of China.”
Two other bills would create a task force of U.S. agencies to conduct joint operations to disrupt trafficking networks, and allow for the imposition of civil penalties on Chinese entities that fail to properly manifest or follow formal entry channels when shipping precursors to the U.S., the committee said.
There is growing consensus in Republican circles close to President-elect Donald Trump that Beijing has exploited, even engineered, the synthetic opioid epidemic to harm Americans, something Beijing denies.
China says it has some of the strictest drug laws in the world, and that the U.S. needs to curb narcotics demand at home.
China’s anti-drugs authorities have always cracked down on incidents linked to missing drug-making chemicals, Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, told a regular news conference on Wednesday, when asked about the bills.
With little time remaining in the current congressional term, the bills would likely need to be reintroduced next year after the new Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3.
Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the select committee, wrote in an article this month that it was “time to get tough” on Beijing over fentanyl.
(Reporting by Michael Martina, Additional reporting by Liz Lee in Beijing; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
