The US President urged other countries to crack down on fentanyl production and exports.
President Donald Trump said China could begin to commit to the production or distribution of fentanyl and begin sentences to death.
When he signed the anti-drug law on Wednesday, the US president said the need to fight fentanyl is one of the reasons for imposing tariffs on countries around the world.
“I think we’re going to settle that so that China will then go to give the death penalty to those who create this fentanyl and send it to our country,” Trump said. “I believe it will happen soon.”
China, which has long imposed severe penalties on those involved in drug distribution, including the death penalty, has been at the heart of Trump’s rage over opioids that help promote the US overdose epidemic.
Despite pleas for tolerance from the Canadian government, the country sparked anger when it executed four Canadian double citizens earlier this year for drug-related crimes.
Experts have questioned whether such penalties will help address the distribution of fentanyl. This says China is driven primarily by demand from the US people.
Trump has previously linked tariffs to fentanyl in countries such as Mexico and Canada, but the latter does not exist in human trafficking to the United States.
Drug overdose in the US has been the subject of concern and political debate for many years, with the country’s opioid epidemic beginning with the active promotion of painkillers by pharmaceutical companies, but is later driven primarily by synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.
Overdose deaths have begun to decline in recent years, giving experts a source of optimism after longtime communities have been destroyed by opioids. Overdoses for the 12 months ended in June 2024 fell 12% compared to the same period last year, down from 113,000 to 97,000.
