‘If President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party can shut down a city the size of Shanghai, one of the three largest cities in the world, I think they could certainly shut down the flow of fentanyl and its precursors into our hemisphere,’ says Hagerty
WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, today received a commitment from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to work with him on effectively stopping the flow of fentanyl and its precursors from China into the Western Hemisphere.
“Today in America, the number one cause of death for young people between the age of 18 and 45 is drug overdose. A hundred thousand lives were lost last year to drug overdoses, and most of those drug overdoses were fentanyl-related, and the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] continues to assess that fentanyl coming from China into Mexico is the major cause of this,” Senator Hagerty said.
Hagerty was informed last year during a CODEL to Guatemala and Mexico that Chinese entities are sending technicians and equipment into Mexico, where they partner with Mexican drug cartels, which are a multi-billion-dollar industry. The Mexican foreign minister told Hagerty that he would welcome assistance with screening technology.
Hagerty continued, “If President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party can shut down a city the size of Shanghai, one of the three largest cities in the world, I think they could certainly shut down the flow of fentanyl and its precursors into our hemisphere.”
Blinken agreed with Hagerty regarding the extent of the problem and agreed to work with the Senator and his team to effectively address the crisis. Blinken also committed to following up regarding Hagerty’s specific suggestion about assisting the Mexican government with screening technology.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdose deaths now exceed 100,000 Americans annually. Mexico remains a major transit and production point for Chinese fentanyl precursors.
Hagerty just returned from a visit to the southern border, where he witnessed the national security and humanitarian crisis there first-hand and learned how drug cartels take advantage of our immigration policies by using record numbers of migrants to move enormous quantities of lethal drugs into the United States.
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