To make synthetic drugs like fentanyl, all you need is $3,600 and an internet connection. It’s quite easy — wholly different from the fields of poppies guarded by hired guns or the complex factories run by genius chemists of yesteryear.
To make fentanyl, you don’t need an advanced degree or farmland. You can get the materials shipped to you and make the fentanyl right on your kitchen counter. That makes regulation very hard.
On Mar. 4, President Trump implemented an additional 10 percent tariff against China for its role in the export of illegal opioids to the U.S. That’s on top of his 10 percent tariff on China implemented last month for the same reason.
Tariffs aren’t likely to affect shipments of fentanyl or related chemicals, because they are often shipped in small amounts that do not incur tariff charges. However, that doesn’t mean that the tariffs have no impact. They provide leverage that Trump should use to strike a deal with China to more comprehensively regulate its pharmaceutical and chemical industries.
Trump has had some success on this issue. During the previous U.S.-China trade war, he frequently lambasted China’s export of fentanyl. In 2019, partially in response to pressure from U.S. tariffs, the Chinese government implemented a ban on the export of fentanyl abroad. Over time, the export of consumer-ready fentanyl from China declined markedly.
Although the direct route for fentanyl from China to the U.S. was halted, Chinese corporations found workarounds. They began shipping precursor chemicals, the ingredients for making fentanyl, to the U.S. and to Mexico, where the drug itself could be produced locally. Rather than ending the opioid epidemic, this merely on-shored production to North America.
China’s government argues that this is where its responsibility ends. Although many countries have laws that hold corporations responsible for knowingly selling their products to aid illicit actors, China has no such laws. Chinese leadership has remained staunchly opposed to this form of accountability, despite U.S. pressure.
International law enforcement has been critical of China’s negligence, especially given that China doesn’t have an opioid epidemic of its own. Its criminal enforcement of anti-drug laws has been notoriously harsh, with possession of cocaine, heroin and meth punishable by death.
In China, government crackdowns are public spectacles and despite its export of fentanyl precursor chemicals, China is known for being tough on drugs domestically.
This time around, it’s unlikely that tariffs alone will convince China to curb precursor chemicals. After China banned the export of fentanyl, both Trump and Biden refused to reverse U.S. tariffs against China. Although China maintained its fentanyl ban, it ended collaboration with U.S. government agencies like the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Under Biden in 2024, some U.S.-China cooperation restarted through a counternarcotics working group that worked to prosecute Chinese intermediaries that partnered with Mexican cartels. If Trump is interested in negotiating, there is more that could be done.
The problem with drug regulation in China is the scale of its industry. China may have as many as 160,000 chemical companies compared to around 9,000 in the U.S. Of those, it isn’t large corporations or state-owned enterprises that sell precursors. Usually, it’s small corporations looking for competitive advantage in a crowded export market.
In order to facilitate exchange between North American customers and these obscure Chinese pharmaceutical companies, brokers are used. If Trump was looking to temporarily halt the production of fentanyl, he could persuade China to go after these intermediaries.
In the long term, another problem is that China has continued to subsidize the export of precursor chemicals. The industries that deal with these drug ingredients are considered critical by the Chinese government, with biopharmaceuticals prioritized as one of 10 key sectors as a part of the Made in China 2025 initiative. Trump could pressure China to perform more due diligence before providing subsidies to corporations that may export precursors.
John Coyne, the director of National Security Programs at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told me that the most substantive change would be China enforcing its statements.
Although it has publicly listed some precursors as illegal, many remain available online for purchase. Trump could use the negotiation process to incentivize China to act on its existing laws regarding fentanyl precursors.
The U.S. is in a stronger negotiating position today than it was a few years ago. China’s economic growth has slowed to less explosive levels and local governments are facing their own problems with foreign debt. There’s a real possibility that Chinese leadership is interested in a more collaborative relationship with the U.S.
If Trump wants to have an impact, negotiations with China will need to concern a host of issues in the relationship. Fentanyl production is an issue for U.S. lawmakers, but it isn’t a priority to China unless Trump is able to make it one. That will require a willingness to make concessions on the U.S. side, rather than the continuous pressure of the last seven years.
Trump is often unpredictable and his transactional style can be tough for U.S. allies to stomach. But there’s a real opportunity for success in dealing with China on fentanyl.
Ransom Miller is a research associate with the Institute for Global Affairs.
