AFP | 2023-07-10

The United States convened on Friday (July 7) numerous countries in an effort to combat fentanyl, conspicuously without the presence of China, which stands accused of being the primary supplier of the chemical substances used in the manufacturing of this opioid.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on dozens of countries to work together to combat synthetic drugs, but China -- facing blame in Washington over an addiction epidemic -- denounced the effort.

Inaugurating a new US-led "coalition" on the scourge, Blinken told ministers from more than 80 countries that the United States -- where nearly 110,000 Americans died last year from drug overdoses, mostly from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids -- was "a canary in the coal mine."

"Having saturated the United States market, transnational criminal enterprises are turning elsewhere to expand their profits," Blinken said.

"If we don't act together with fierce urgency, more cities around the world will bear the catastrophic costs" witnessed in the United States, he said.

As the drugs' addictiveness became increasingly clear, the United States pressured China, the chief source of fentanyl, to ban exports, which it did in 2019.

But China is still a major producer of precursor chemicals, which are then shipped to Mexico and Central America where cartels produce fentanyl for smuggling into the United States.

Todd Robinson, the US assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement, said the United States would welcome China's participation in future meetings and hoped that other countries would reach out to Beijing.

"Part of the reason we're trying to bring this coalition together is to engage other countries in their efforts against these supply chains, and part of their responsibility is going to be engaging with the PRC," he said, referring to the People's Republic of China.