WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Co-Chair of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the following comment regarding reports that, during a State Department visit to Beijing last month, the Biden administration discussed lifting sanctions on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to incentivize cooperation on stopping the flow of Chinese-manufactured fentanyl precursors. 

“Beijing’s reported pitch to curtail fentanyl precursors fueling overdose deaths in the United States on the condition that the U.S. lift sanctions on suspected human rights abusers is an outrageous suggestion and a false choice. It only serves to demonstrate what the Chinese Communist Party expects to get away with under the Biden administration. If the Biden administration accepts this, it will be a further cultivation of a failed strategy of appeasement with our adversaries.

“This is an unserious proposal that makes a mockery of the drug epidemic facing our nation. In order to solve the fentanyl crisis, the United States must take the lead. We should start by better enforcing our laws, securing our border, enacting stronger penalties for those involved in the illicit manufacturing and trafficking of drugs and imposing tougher consequences for foreign counterparts who fail to follow the rules.”

Grassley has pointed the finger squarely at the CCP for its role in fueling the fentanyl epidemic. In May, he sent a letter along with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, to the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Washington demanding the CCP take strong and decisive action to stop precursor chemical production.  

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