‘How hard would it be for President Biden to pick the phone up and call President Xi and lay out a set of consequences, including sanctions if they don’t stop sending fentanyl precursors here to kill our youth?’ Hagerty says
WASHINGTON—United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today pressed Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the Biden Administration’s failure to hold China accountable for its role in the fentanyl crisis that is killing more than 70,000 Americans each year.
“How many sanctions have been placed on Chinese individuals or entities that are involved in the fentanyl trade?” Hagerty asked.
Blinken failed to provide a number and said, “We have sought to try to get China to, in a cooperative way, because it’s actually in their interest to do this, to deal more effectively in cracking down on the diversion of those precursors.”
“I understand that you’ve sought to do so, but it’s not worked,” Hagerty said. “And in fact, there’s been zero sanctions issued since you and I talked about this.”
“How hard would it be for President Biden to pick the phone up and call President Xi Jinping tomorrow and lay out a set of consequences, including sanctions that are going to be delivered upon China if they don’t stop sending fentanyl and fentanyl precursors here to kill our youth?” Hagerty asked. “70,000 young people a year are dying of this—23 times the deaths associated with the 9/11 attacks. This is a war on our youth. We’ve got to do something about it.”
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