Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) introduced legislation on Feb. 24 to block the flow from China of precursor drugs made into deadly fentanyl that ends up in the United States.
“The Stop CCP Fentanyl Act” imposes sanctions on Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping and CCP senior officials. It also includes a recourse for the immediate family of those killed by fentanyl to pursue damages against the CCP.
“More than 100,000 Americans have been killed by Fentanyl from Communist China. Xi Jinping and the CCP must be held accountable,” said Rep. Banks, who is running for U.S. Senator in the Hoosier state.
Sanctions imposed under the act would remain in place for 18 months, following which U.S. intelligence agencies would determine the amount of fentanyl in the country made from precursors originating in China over that period.
The president can lift the sanctions if the amount is at least 98 percent less than in the prior 18 months.
China produces most of the drug precursors manufactured into fentanyl in Mexico. And most of the illegal fentanyl in the United States is trafficked from Mexico.
Banks’ office released information documenting that in 2022, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) “seized a record 14,700 lbs. fentanyl, compared with 11,200 lbs. in 2021 and 4,800 lbs. in 2020.”
Banks, who sits on the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, filed “The Stop CCP Fentanyl Act” ahead of the Select Committee’s “The Chinese Communist Party’s Threat to America” hearing on Feb. 28.
The sanctions would ban Xi and his top administrators from “engaging in financial transactions within the U.S. or with U.S. citizens pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.”
Lethal Potency
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid. Developed in 1959 to treat pain in cancer patients, fentanyl is legally produced and prescribed in the U.S.
Fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more powerful than heroin.
An epidemic of fentanyl-related overdoses in America has resulted from drug users believing they are purchasing a strong form of heroin and are not told by sellers of the heroin that what makes it so potent is that it contains fentanyl.
