US Lawmakers Propose Forming Federal Task Force to Combat Fentanyl Crisis

The lawmakers introduced a bipartisan bill aimed at streamlining interagency collaboration in curbing fentanyl trafficking.

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) questions Matt Albence, then the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, during a hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on July 25, 2019. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) introduced a bipartisan bill on March 11 to establish a federal joint task force focused on combating the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

The bill, cosponsored by several bipartisan House representatives and paired with a companion bill introduced in the Senate by Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), aims to streamline interagency collaboration.

Newhouse stated that the task force will “pool resources” across the federal government to respond to fentanyl trafficking with sanctions and joint raids.

It will focus on both international and domestic efforts to dismantle drug trafficking networks, including developing strategies to address China’s involvement in the fentanyl crisis, according to his statement.

“This legislation would empower our federal government to coordinate all the tools at its disposal to combat the trafficking of lethal fentanyl that is ruining American families,” Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) said in a statement.

Fentanyl overdose has been identified as the leading cause of death for Americans aged between 18 and 45. More than 107,000 overdose deaths were recorded in the United States in 2023, most of which were linked to fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

President Donald Trump has blamed China for its failure to control the flow of fentanyl that has been entering the United States through Mexico and Canada. He imposed tariffs on all three countries to pressure them into taking stronger actions to curb fentanyl trafficking.

“Vast amounts of fentanyl have poured into our country from Mexico, and as you know, also from China, where it goes to Mexico and goes to Canada,” Trump told reporters on March 3.

China and the United States have been engaged in a tit-for-tat tariff exchange after Trump imposed a 10 percent tariff on Chinese imports on Feb. 4. Trump later increased tariffs to 20 percent, causing China to retaliate with more tariffs on certain U.S. imports and blacklist several U.S. companies.

Sens. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) introduced a bipartisan bill on March 6 that would allow the U.S. government to impose sanctions on Chinese state-owned or state-controlled entities, including financial institutions, for their roles in fentanyl trafficking.

“With the support of the Chinese government, China remains the single greatest source of fentanyl and synthetic opioid precursors to Mexican cartels,“ Risch said in a statement. ”These opioids then come across our southern border and kill over 100,000 Americans every year.”

A report released in 2024 by the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party identified China as the “ultimate geographic source” of the fentanyl crisis in the United States. The report found that Chinese companies are the main producers of the precursors used to make fentanyl.