Trump ally says Xi must halt fentanyl flow before tariff talks
An American senator stated that China must stop the flow of fentanyl ingredients into the U.S. before any trade negotiations, a demand that casts uncertainty on the potential for imminent leaders’ talks aimed at easing tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
Steve Daines, a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, laid out the condition in meetings with Chinese officials in Beijing over the weekend. The Republican lawmaker said he hopes a leadership meeting will take place before the end of the year, although Trump previously said it would happen soon, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
"It’ll be difficult to have any conversation about tariffs and nontariff barriers until the fentanyl precursor issue is resolved,” Daines said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg News on Sunday.
The Montana senator, who was an intermediary for Trump during his first trade war with China, met with Chinese leaders including Premier Li Qiang over the weekend. He didn’t meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who in 2023 sat down with then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who led a bipartisan delegation to Beijing, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom on separate occasions.
While he called his conversation with Li constructive, Daines emphasized a request that Beijing may find hard to fulfill just days before fresh U.S. trade actions.
"I made it clear that President Trump needs to see China take decisive actions to stop the flow of fentanyl precursors, not to slow down the flow but to stop the flow,” Daines said.
That contrasts with China’s claim that it has already forcefully cracked down on the fentanyl trade. Beijing said earlier this month that it had done all it could for the U.S. and that Washington should have said a "big thank you” instead of slapping levies on Chinese imports.
"The calendar is working against a meeting,” said Dexter Roberts, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Global China Hub and instructor in Chinese politics at the University of Montana. "As tariffs ratchet up on both sides, the likelihood of a Xi-Trump meeting only fades.”
Communist Party officials met with Daines and global CEOs days before an April 1 deadline for a U.S. review of Beijing’s trade compliance and Trump’s plans to impose reciprocal duties globally the day after.
China is likely to retaliate against any new trade curbs from the U.S., as it did after Trump imposed a new 10% tariff on Chinese goods in February and added another 10% in March. China struck back with levies on a slew of U.S. farm products and suspended soybean imports from three U.S. entities.
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