Not Quite Yet, China

Victor Davis Hanson

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China has tentatively agreed to curtail sales of fentanyl to Mexico and other Latin American nations.

For three decades, Beijing sent the raw product to Latin American and Mexican cartels. The gangs then processed and disguised the toxic brew as less lethal narcotics and prescription drugs for export. The cartels laundered the profits with additional Chinese help, along with the feigned ignorance of the Mexican government.

Since 1999, imported fentanyl-laced drugs have killed approximately 600,000 Americans through addiction and accidental overdoses. That number nears the death toll of all Americans killed during the Civil War.

Following Donald Trump’s recent visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, China is reportedly set to lift restrictions on its rare earth mineral exports to the U.S. That was a self-interested move, since the U.S. and its allies were already mobilizing to become immune to Chinese cut-offs. Xi Jinping also agreed to resume purchases of U.S. soybeans.

Trump’s concessions include agreeing to reduce tariffs on Chinese goods to 47 percent, while maintaining tariffs on most Chinese imports at levels still higher than those of almost any other importing country.

No doubt, more details will emerge of other concessions. Both China and Trump’s domestic critics will undoubtedly seek to refute the administration’s insistence that the U.S. won most of the advantages.

For nearly half a century, over the Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, Trump’s first, and Biden administrations, Americans more or less came to accept that more Americans would die from fentanyl than were lost in all foreign wars in U.S. history. If China really does comply with its agreement, and the cartels cannot find alternate sources of raw product, then Trump might become the greatest savior of American lives in U.S. history.

So why did the Chinese government agree to these tentative agreements, given that no prior president has been able to stop the Chinese fentanyl supply chain or to tariff its goods without fearing a destructive trade war?