China announces restrictions on chemicals after deal with Trump on
fentanyl tariffs
[November 11, 2025] By
DIDI TANG
WASHINGTON (AP) — China said Monday it is making good on its pledge to
crack down on chemicals that can be used to make fentanyl, a key issue
for President Donald Trump during recent talks with Chinese leader Xi
Jinping as they aimed to take steps to ease a trade war.
Beijing announced new export restrictions on 13 “drug-making” chemicals
to the United States, Canada and Mexico, including those that are used
to produce the synthetic opioid blamed for tens of thousands of overdose
deaths in the U.S. every year. After meeting Xi in South Korea last
month, Trump said China would help end the fentanyl crisis and he would
ease a related tariff from 20% to 10%.
It shows the back-and-forth nature of U.S.-Chinese cooperation on
fentanyl over the years and lessens the recent tensions after Trump
launched his campaign of tariffs, including those against the country
that is the top exporter of pharmaceutical ingredients, such as the
chemicals used to make fentanyl.
“What the Trump administration has essentially agreed with Beijing is
for Beijing to restart what it had been doing during the second part of
2024," before Trump returned to the White House, said Vanda Felbab-Brown,
a senior fellow focusing on the opioid crisis at the Brookings
Institution.
Asked for the White House's response to the Chinese export restrictions
and whether the deal essentially resumes the cooperation from China that
was disrupted by Trump's tariffs, deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said
the president “has taken every possible action to stop the flow of
illicit narcotics into our country, from securing the border to striking
drug boats to curbing fentanyl precursors.”
Cooperation on fentanyl has long been a sticking point in relations
between Beijing and Washington.
In 2019, during Trump's first term, Beijing took a huge step by
restricting fentanyl and related substances at the request of the U.S.
president. When tensions rose between Beijing and Washington over human
rights issues, China started to stall counternarcotics cooperation in
2020 before making it formal two years later.
The U.S. in 2023 listed China as a “major illicit drug-producing
country" before then-President Joe Biden met Xi in California to secure
Beijing's agreement to cooperate.
[to top of second column] |
President Donald Trump, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping,
right, shake hands before their meeting at Gimhae International
Airport in Busan, South Korea, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025. (AP
Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
 Shortly afterward, Beijing
restricted more substances, including another synthetic opioid and
chemicals that are added to fentanyl. Other key fentanyl precursors
were curtailed in September 2024.
After Trump took office, he slapped two 10% tariffs on China,
accusing it of failing to stem the flow of chemicals. Beijing
responded with its own tariffs and pausing cooperation on fentanyl.
“The Trump administration made the big error in completely
discounting and ignoring what China was doing with the U.S. in 2024
and just coming in with guns blazing” on tariffs, Felbab-Brown said.
That, she said, has allowed Beijing to bargain to resume measures
that were already on the table in the second half of 2024 and “get
double points."
Also on Monday, Beijing took another step aimed at addressing U.S.
concerns, signaling tougher enforcement with a public notice by the
China National Narcotics Control Commission urging businesses to
comply with tax codes, customs rules, internet laws and foreign
currency regulations.
The chemicals newly restricted by Beijing can still be exported
without a license to other countries besides the three in North
America that were named in the Chinese Commerce Ministry
announcement. Fentanyl is mostly manufactured in Mexico.
The challenge remains that the “very basic chemicals” with
widespread, legitimate uses in chemistry, agriculture and the
pharmaceutical industry are increasingly tapped to make synthetic
opioids, Felbab-Brown said.
In September, Trump continued to list China as a “major illicit
drug-producing country."
“For too long, (China) has enabled illicit fentanyl production in
Mexico and elsewhere by subsidizing the export of the precursor
chemicals needed to produce these deadly drugs and failing to
prevent Chinese companies from selling these precursors to known
criminal cartels,” the presidential statement said.
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