The fight against fentanyl must be global, like the fight against Covid-19, the United States ambassador to Mexico insisted on Saturday about this synthetic drug which kills thousands of Americans with chemical components from China via Mexico.
“The world needs to come together, it’s not just about Mexico and the United States anymore. Governments in Europe are seeing what’s happening with fentanyl,” Ken Salazar told reporters.
President Biden’s right-hand man described as “historic” the bilateral meeting Thursday in Washington on the fight against drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States, and arms trafficking in the opposite direction.
At the end of this meeting, the American authorities announced Friday sanctions against networks implicating China in the traffic of fentanyl.
Two Chinese companies, accused of supplying the cartel with chemical compounds, are targeted by sanctions from the Ministry of the Treasury.
The Justice Department also charged 28 people, including three children of Mexican drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is serving a life sentence in a Colorado prison.
One of the three Guzmán sons, Ovidio, was arrested on January 5 in Mexico in an operation that caused the death of 29 people (10 soldiers and 19 suspected criminals). The United States requested his extradition in February.
Other people have been arrested in Colombia, Greece, Guatemala and the United States, said the director of the American anti-drugs agency (DEA), Anne Milgram.
On April 6, Beijing denied the existence of “illegal trafficking of fentanyl between China and Mexico”.
“The United States should face up to its own problem and take measures to…reduce demand,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
She was questioned about a letter from Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping asking for help in the fight against fentanyl trafficking between China and Mexico.