Growing national concerns about the Biden administration’s failure to stop the unprecedented flow of killer fentanyl across the border are now adding in the State Department’s failure to pressure China on the crisis.
In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent on Monday, the Kentucky attorney general accused the State Department of wasting chances to slow the drug trade by refusing to get Beijing to stop supplying Mexican drug cartels with critical ingredients used to make the drug.
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“You must do more — including calling cartels what they are, terrorist organizations — to halt the supply of Chinese precursors and to disrupt the cartels’ production and distribution of fentanyl,” wrote Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen bows over and over and over to #Communist #China official during recent trip to #Beijing pic.twitter.com/Vk5uWxBLHU
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“Under your leadership, the State Department has failed that duty. I call on you to leverage your authority to help stop China and Mexican cartels from targeting and poisoning our citizens,” he added in a letter provided exclusively to Secrets on Monday.
The State Department has said that in visits with Chinese leaders, Blinken and others have pressed on the drug problem. But Cameron said the efforts have been weak and second to other problems. “Your tepid and disjointed approach is worrisome. While there are certainly many important issues for the United States and China to discuss, it is shameful that your State Department refuses to prioritize fentanyl,” he wrote.
Cameron also used his letter to blast State and the administration for blowing its chance to build on former President Donald Trump’s campaign to close the border to illegal immigrant crossings and drug and human trafficking.
“This coordinated effort by China and Mexican cartels demands a strong, consistent response from the State Department. This is exactly the kind of effort the Trump administration began and that you have wasted,” said the letter.
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Several governors have hit the administration for inaction in the war on fentanyl flooding in from Mexico. Many have heeded Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R-TX) call for National Guard troops on the border to reinforce “Operation Lone Star.”
Just last week, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) visited with some of the 100 troops the commonwealth sent to the border. He agreed with Cameron that the administration has blundered the war on drugs.
“An open border is enabling the destruction of lives by the blight of illicit drugs and human trafficking. With an average of five Virginians dying a day from fentanyl overdoses, we have to go to work at the source,” the governor said.
