Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) (C) greets Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (L) before their meeting held in the Xinjiang Room at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 22, 2025. Ng Han Guan/AFP via Getty Images
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) called on Beijing to address China’s manufacturing of precursor chemicals used in fentanyl production, an issue that President Donald Trump has cited as a reason for his recent tariff hikes against the country.
Daines, the first U.S. politician to travel to Beijing since Trump’s second term began, conveyed the message during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on March 23.
“The Senator ... emphasized President Trump’s call for decisive action from China to stop the flow of fentanyl precursors and to end their devastating impact on the American people,” according to the readout released by Daines’s office.
Joining him were seven American executives, including Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon, Pfizer’s Albert Bourla, and FedEx’s Raj Subramaniam.
The group shared “their decades-long commitment to doing business in China” and discussed “their current challenges,” the senator’s office said.
The Chinese summary of the meeting, released by state-run media outlet Xinhua, didn’t mention fentanyl or the concerns raised by the U.S. CEOs.
Instead, it highlighted Beijing’s grievances. Li said the relationship between the two countries stands at “an important juncture,” urging the United States to choose “dialogue” rather than “confrontation.”
The meeting came as China seeks to shore up confidence amid a significant drop in foreign investment, which tumbled to its lowest level in three decades last year. Chinese commerce ministry officials acknowledged last month that geopolitical tensions have dampened foreign investor sentiment.
Earlier this month, Trump imposed 25 percent across-the-board tariffs on Canada and Mexico and 20 percent tariffs on all Chinese goods, saying the trade measures were a response to their handling of the large amount of fentanyl that has been smuggled into the United States.
In retaliation, China announced additional tariffs of up to 15 percent on some U.S. agricultural goods. It also added 15 U.S. companies to its export control list, along with a ban on imports from gene sequencing company Illumina.
Ahead of the meeting with China’s No. 2 official, the senator met with the regime’s vice premier, He Lifeng, on March 22.
In a brief readout about the meeting, Daines’s office said the senator “voiced President Trump’s ongoing call for China to stop the flow of fentanyl precursors and expressed the hope that further high-level talks between the United States and China will take place in the near future.”
According to Xinhua, the Chinese vice premier told Daines that China “is willing to engage in candid dialogue with the United States” and added the two sides “have many common interests and broad space of cooperation.”
U.S. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) (2nd R) leads a delegation of U.S. business leaders (L–R) Boeing Global Senior VP Brendan Nelson, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Cargill CEO Brian Sikes, UL Solutions CEO Jennifer Scanlon, Medtronic CEO Geoffrey Martha, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, and FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang (R) in Beijing on March 23, 2025. Ng Han Guan/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
Daines, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, arrived in Beijing on March 20, after a stop in Vietnam where he met with top Vietnamese leaders.
On March 21, Daines met with Chinese vice foreign minister Ma Zhaoxu.
Before leaving for China, Daines noted on social media platform X that he had talked with Trump about China.
“We discussed my upcoming trip to China, and he is pleased that I’ll be carrying his America First agenda and discussing the flow of deadly fentanyl into our country, protecting and growing American jobs, and establishing fair trade between the U.S. and China,” Daines wrote on March 14.
Drug overdose, notably fentanyl poisoning, is the leading cause of death for 18- to 45-year-olds in the United States. The raw materials for illicit fentanyl are usually shipped from China to Mexico, where the finished product is made and smuggled across the border.
There are bills in both chambers of Congress aiming to tackle the fentanyl crisis in the United States.
Earlier this month, Sens. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, respectively, introduced the Break Up Suspicious Transactions of Fentanyl Act (S.860). Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), who also sits on the committee, has cosponsored the legislation.
The legislation does not link to tariffs but aims to give the president more authority to impose sanctions on China’s state-owned or state-controlled entities, including financial institutions, for contributing to fentanyl trafficking.
Two House bills—the Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act (H.R.747) and the Stop Fentanyl Money Laundering Act (H.R.1577)—now await a House vote after advancing out of the Financial Services Committee on March 5.
On March 21, Trump confirmed that his top trade chief, Jamieson Greer, planned to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart in the coming week.
Trump also said he “will be speaking” to Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping, although the president did not provide any other details.
In February, Trump confirmed that he had spoken with Xi since his inauguration on Jan. 20.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Frank Fang is a Taiwan-based journalist. He covers U.S., China, and Taiwan news. He holds a master's degree in materials science from Tsinghua University in Taiwan.
