China is bamboozling Patel on fentanyl

OPINION:

Upon returning from China recently, FBI Director Kash Patel was crowing about success in the fentanyl war. “President Trump has shut off the pipeline that creates fentanyl that kills tens of thousands of Americans. These substances are now banned.”

He also said, “This opioid crisis is going to be ‘turned off.’”

Does he really believe this?

He got a promise from the Chinese to declare 13 fentanyl precursors illegal and to control seven other chemicals. So what? They have done this before. In a 2018 meeting with Mr. Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to restrict all fentanyl-type substances. Mr. Trump declared it a “game-changer.” Yet unsurprisingly, the drugs kept arriving in America.

In 2019, more than 37,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses. That’s nearly five times the number of American troops killed in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the deaths have kept coming. Since 2013, around 750,000 Americans have died from fentanyl.

Think maybe this time is different? Don’t bet on it.

If Chinese leaders wanted to stop the flow of Chinese-origin fentanyl (precursors or otherwise), they could. They have a surveillance state George Orwell couldn’t have imagined.

They have no incentive to do so. Besides the dead from fentanyl, maybe 10 times as many people have been injured and often turned into zombies. Many victims are of military service age.

China is severely damaging its “main enemy” without firing a shot. Punishment from the U.S. government? None.

That’s not surprising, given the bought-off American elites who clamor to keep doing business with China, as Peter Schweizer’s “Blood Money” lays out.

Mr. Trump’s “fentanyl tariff” sounds good, but it’s missing a few digits. Instead of 10% (it was just reduced from 20%), it ought to be 2,000% — assuming one can put a price on the mass murder of Americans.

For too long, American elites have made excuses for why the Chinese government can’t (or won’t) stop the illicit drug flow. Some claim Chinese local governments, supposedly outside Beijing’s reach, are to blame because they want tax revenue and employment and are thoroughly corrupt.

True enough, but local officials are also frightened of being caught crossing Beijing. Thus, one readily concludes that the Chinese Communist Party leadership has no objections.

Others explain that the Chinese government is in a legal bind, as fentanyl producers keep jiggering the formula to avoid the “illegal list.” Therefore, the producers are always one step ahead.

A nice excuse, but in China, the law is what Mr. Xi and the CCP say it is. If they want to shut down fentanyl producers, the law is no obstacle.

Do the Chinese cops have an approach to policing that ties their hands? Not quite. The Chinese police can do whatever they want. The only restraints come from Zhongnanhai, the very top of the CCP.

The biggest whopper of all is the claim that Chinese authorities can’t locate the illegal drug producers. China is a big place, you know.

Well, deface a poster of Mr. Xi and see how long it takes to be arrested and imprisoned. Post on social media that he resembles Winnie the Pooh, and you’ll have Ministry of State security agents at your front door in minutes.

So the People’s Republic of China is glad to tell Messrs. Patel and Trump what they want to hear. Meanwhile, they are killing Americans with an aim to dominate the U.S. by midcentury. Even better, China generates a substantial amount of money from the drug trade — in convertible currency. Buy fentanyl, and you pay in dollars.

The Congressional Select Committee on China’s recent fentanyl report conclusively implicates the CCP in the fentanyl business, although it’s weak on the what-to-do-about-it front.

Here are some possible fixes:

• Suspend all Chinese financial institutions from the U.S. dollar network. Start with the People’s Bank of China and add one a week.
• Immediately delist every Chinese company from the New York Stock Exchange and other exchanges. None should have been listed in the first place.
• Revoke the green cards and visas and place liens on the properties and bank accounts of the top 500 CCP members’ relatives in the U.S.
• Finally, the one thing that scares the daylights out of Mr. Xi and CCP elites: Expose their obscene wealth and don’t let up. Much of it is held in the U.S. and other free nations. They can’t blame their own corruption on foreigners to the 600 million Chinese living on $5 or less a day.

China can stop fentanyl, but the Trump administration still hasn’t given it a reason to do so.

• U.S. Marine Col. Grant Newsham (retired) is the author of “When China Attacks: A Warning to America.”