Biden and Xi eye fentanyl deal in San Francisco

Fentanyl is set to take center stage at Wednesday’s high-stakes meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Senior administration officials have suggested that the leaders could announce a deal to combat the flow of “precursor” chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl. These people stressed that a deal has not been finalized and that details could be hashed out during the Biden-Xi meeting on Wednesday.

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San Francisco offers a stark reminder of the escalating fentanyl crisis in the United States. Addiction has been the core driver between skyrocketing crime and homelessness in the city. San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins has made prosecuting drug dealers a core pillar of her agenda, an extreme reversal from the positions of recent prosecutors. Meanwhile, Mayor London Breed has sought to prioritize mental health-focused solutions to the drug epidemic while simultaneously requesting aid from the federal government to assist local law enforcement.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), a top Biden ally and possible future presidential candidate himself, drew fire in recent days for cleaning out the city’s homeless camps ahead of the arrival of Xi and other Asian leaders.

“I know folks are saying, ‘Oh, they’re just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming to town,'” Newsom said at a press conference. “That’s true, because it’s true — but it’s also true for months and months and months before APEC, we’ve been having conversations.”

The White House declined to comment on the specifics of a fentanyl deal, but national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the administration believes an agreement on the matter could be reached in the weeks following Biden’s meeting with Xi.

“We’re hoping to see some progress on that issue this coming weekend,” Sullivan told reporters at Monday’s White House press briefing. “And that could, then, open the door to further cooperation on other issues where we aren’t just managing things, but we’re actually delivering tangible results. We’ll continue to work at that as we go forward.”

“This is something that we’ve talked about and taken very seriously, when it comes to fentanyl and getting that off our streets. We are certainly focused on making sure that we protect Americans and American families,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre added. “So, obviously, this is an important agenda item that the president wants to have to discuss. This fentanyl, getting that off our streets, is certainly a critical conversation that we need to continue to have, and the president certainly has taken actions on doing that.”

Multiple reports suggest that Beijing is willing to tackle the Chinese companies producing fentanyl precursors in exchange for the U.S. lifting sanctions on the Institute of Forensic Science, an arm of China’s Ministry of Public Security.

The Trump administration placed the institute on the Commerce Department’s entity list in 2020 in relation to abuses of Uyghur Muslims. Beijing previously resisted cooperating with the U.S. in combating the flow of fentanyl, specifically citing restrictions placed on the Institute of Forensic Science.

Fentanyl overdose deaths have more than tripled in the U.S. since 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of the 107,081 drug overdose deaths that occurred in the U.S. in 2022, the CDC attributed more than two-thirds of them to fentanyl and other manufactured opioids.

The Biden administration has taken steps to address the opioid epidemic, but those actions have largely focused on seizing the illicit drug at the southern border. The recent supplemental funding request Biden sent to Congress included $1.2 billion to expand “nonintrusive inspection” systems and hire additional Customs and Border Protection agents to search for fentanyl specifically, both at illegal border crossings and legal ports of entry.

Furthermore, the Justice Department has increased its targeting of Chinese and other foreign entities connected to the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.

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“We know that this global fentanyl supply chain, which ends with the deaths of Americans, often starts with chemical companies in China,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement while announcing sanctions on 28 such people and entities.

The Biden administration has also engaged Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador about combating cartels’ production and smuggling of drugs. Biden is scheduled to meet with Lopez Obrador in San Francisco following the conclusion of the APEC summit, with the stated claim of cracking down on fentanyl.