Biden-Harris Admin Adds China To Illicit Drug Watchlist After Touting Cooperation In Fighting Fentanyl Crisis

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

The Biden administration added China to its illicit drug watchlist on Monday, despite previously touting cooperation with Beijing on countering the growing fentanyl epidemic in the U.S.

To deal with the fentanyl epidemic in the U.S. — which China has historically played a significant role in — the Biden administration created a “working group” with Beijing earlier this year, building on an agreement between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November. But China still needs to do more to keep its end of the bargain, adding the country to its “Major Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries for Fiscal Year 2025″ list released Monday.

Though the list is not a “sanction or penalty,” it is meant to designate countries that act as “major drug transit or major illicit drug-producing countries,” which include “countries that are a significant direct source of precursor chemicals used in the production of certain drugs and substances significantly affecting the United States,” according to the White House. Other countries named in the 2025 list include Afghanistan, Venezuela, Mexico and India.

China has been responsible for producing a substantial amount of the fentanyl ingredients that are trafficked overseas, including to Mexico and Central America, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Those ingredients are packaged into a final product and smuggled over the U.S. southern border.

While claiming that some “significant steps” have been taken by China to stem the flow of ingredients out of its mainland, “sustained enforcement and regulatory action will be necessary to significantly reduce the [People’s Republic of China’s] role as a source of precursor chemicals used in the production, sale, and trafficking of illicit synthetic drugs significantly impacting the United States,” a statement from the White House reads.

Prior to designating China as an illicit drug trafficker and producer, the Biden administration has at several points promoted its new “working group” with Beijing and claimed that progress was being made in countering the fentanyl epidemic. But an investigation by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) earlier this year found that there was “no evidence” that China was cracking down on illegal fentanyl production or trafficking inside the mainland.

Instead, China is an active enabler in the crisis because it “directly subsidizes” the production and export of ingredients and fails to prosecute those responsible, according to the investigation.

“This failure — when combined with new evidence establishing that the [People’s Republic of China] incentivizes the export of illegal drugs abroad and holds ownership stake in companies doing the same — casts doubt on the veracity of the PRC’s claims that it will act to stem the massive export of illicit fentanyl materials and other dangerous synthetic narcotics,” the investigation report reads.

Some Republican lawmakers feel the administration could also do more by preventing the flow of fentanyl over the southern border.

“If President Biden were actually taking the problem of fentanyl trafficking seriously, he would have already shut down the border and with it, points of entry for drug smuggling,” Republican California Rep. Michelle Steel previously told The Daily Caller. “The Biden Administration’s border crisis has been a key catalyst in the explosion of fentanyl into the U.S.”

“We continue to press for the [People’s Republic of China] to schedule all precursor chemicals that are controlled at the international level, in line with their treaty obligations,” A State Department spokesman told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Our cooperation is laser-focused on driving action that save lives. This work will continue as we press for continued enforcement action and regulation to halt this deadly flow.”

Related Topics:#DailyCaller #JasonHopkins ChinaFentanyl ChinaIllicitDrugWatchlist USChinaDrugWatchlist USFentanylEpidemic

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Crime

Bukele Defends El Salvador’s Gang Reforms

Published on October 2, 2024

Todayville

From Armstrong Economics

By Martin Armstrong

Here are 23 seconds of my speech at the UN.

23 segundos de mi discurso en la ONU. pic.twitter.com/Lh3demxfUi

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) September 24, 2024

The United Nations would like the world to adhere to its lax crime laws. Generate civil unrest to destabilize nations to create a need for order, a New World Order, that will be more powerful and effective than the government. El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele began an anti-gang crusade when he entered office. Affiliated with a gang? Straight to prison.

Now, the self-proclaimed humanitarians at the Untied Nations called Bukele’s crusade extreme and demanded that he loosen his laws. “Some say that we have imprisoned thousands, but the reality is that we have freed millions. Now it is the good guys who live free, without fear, with their freedoms and human rights fully respected,” Bukele said to the counsel.

Over 82,000 gang members were arrested. Sadly, those who were not arrested fled to open border nations like the United States where they will not be deported because they are seeking asylum for their crimes. Donald Trump accurately said that declining crime in South America directly correlated to the rising crime we see in the United States.

But, it is the duty of each leader to put his or her country first. “We made our nation that was the homicide capital of the world, the safest country in the entire Western Hemisphere . It was the greatest challenge that our nation has overcome,” he added. The governor affirmed that El Salvador used to be the “most violent country in the world without war or the country of the maras” (gangs), but this changed with his crusade.” The president proudly noted that he has returned the streets of El Salvador back to the people.

Again, El Salvador cannot prevent the exodus of criminals from its border that are surging into the United States. Bukele would have had those criminals imprisoned, but Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have openly welcomed into America. The blatant corruption has been noted by everyone.

“In El Salvador we do not imprison our opposition, we do not censor opinions, we do not confiscate property of those who think differently, we do not arrest people for their expressing ideas,” the president said as a direct criticism to the Build Back Better nations that are openly silencing and arresting any politician who dares speak out against the Great Reset and New World Order agendas.

The nations with leaders brave enough to go against the global cabal are excelling. We cannot be angered by leaders who uphold the integrity of their office and put their own people and domestic policy first and foremost.

Crime

EXCLUSIVE: GOP Rep Demands Answers From FBI Over ‘Misguided’ Crime Stats

Published on October 1, 2024

Todayville

FBI Director Christopher Wray

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Wallace White

Republican Texas Rep. Lance Gooden is demanding the FBI answer questions about the alleged gaps in their recently released 2023 crime report that paints a misleading picture of crime, according to a letter provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Gooden is joined by Republican Texas Rep. Randy Weber and Republican Wisconsin Rep. Tom Tiffany in the letter questioning the FBI crime data’s validity, pointing to the agency’s past of “inaccurate claims” on crime by omitting certain department’s data from their numbers, according to the letter. The FBI data showed a 3% reduction in violent crime in 2023, which Gooden says in the letter “couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Underreporting or misreporting crime statistics significantly impacts public perception and policy decisions, leading to a misunderstanding of crime trends, which causes unwarranted fear or complacency,” Gooden said in the letter. “Cherry-picking statistical data to deliberately mislead the public into thinking their community is safer than before would be an abhorrent act of ‘misinformation,’ especially considering the source of the misguided claim is an elite federal law enforcement agency.”

The letter asks several questions to the FBI, such as if they omitted any data from various major cities, how many agencies provided incomplete data and if the data would be retroactively adjusted to reflect an increase in violent crime, like it had in 2022 according to the Crime Prevention Research Center. In 2022, over 6,000 agencies did not report data to the FBI, accounting for 32% of all police departments in the U.S., according to the letter.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been touting the newly released data, saying that violent crime is at a “50-year low” and crediting their American Rescue Plan bill for the alleged decrease, according to a September White House press release. Most recently, the FBI published a quarterly report that reported for the first six months of 2024 that violent crime was down 10.3% compared to the first six months of 2023, according to an FBI press release.

However, the data only counted reports from 72% of law enforcement agencies, according to the press release. It is also unclear which agencies are omitted in the quarterly report.

Another survey of crime in the nation is the National Crime Victimization Survey (NVCS) carried out by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), which showed from 2021 to 2023, the NVCS reported a 36% increase in the violent crime victimization rate, according to the report. The UCR and the NVCS differed substantially, differing by over 45% in 2022, according to the Marshall Project in 2023.

“If key data about the actual criminal activity in our cities is missing, it has not been reflected in either your claim or the accompanying press release,” Gooden said in the letter. “A selective and deliberate omission of relevant and necessary context amounts to an inexcusable case of spreading ‘misinformation’ by an agency of the Federal government.”

The FBI didn’t immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.