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Two weeks ago, counternarcotics officials from the U.S. and Mexico flew to Shanghai to meet with their Chinese counterparts. The gathering was a rare opportunity for officials from three countries on the front lines of the fentanyl crisis to swap intelligence on the flows of fentanyl and the drug money financing it. It was the sort of meeting of cops and prosecutors that U.S. officials have long been pushing for, but that until recently China had resisted.  (Spegele, 11/27)

Experts at the Council on Foreign Relations say that Chinese and U.S. law enforcement officials need to work together more closely, and that China needs to provide the United States with more support in anti-money laundering efforts to block the flow of illicit money funding the trade. Some analysts were concerned that tariffs might hurt that effort more than help it. “An imposition of tariffs is not going to do anything regarding the flow of fentanyl,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert on global drug policy. (Pierson, 11/26)

Fentanyl started arriving in the US from China about 10 years ago. In 2020, the US Drug Enforcement Administration said that China was the “primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail”. As authorities in the US and China have cracked down on traffickers and criminal gangs, much of that flow has been re-routed through cartels in Mexico. Rather than sending shipments of finished illicit fentanyl directly to the US, drug traffickers and exporters in China send precursor chemicals to Mexico, where they can be turned into fentanyl and sent on to the US. (Hawkins, 11/26)

China's state media warned U.S. President-elect Donald Trump his pledge to slap additional tariffs on Chinese goods over fentanyl flows could drag the world's top two economies into a mutually destructive tariff war. Editorials in Chinese communist party mouthpieces China Daily and the Global Times late on Tuesday warned the next occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to not make China a "scapegoat" for the U.S.' fentanyl crisis or "take China's goodwill for granted regarding anti-drug cooperation". (Cash, 11/27)

President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to slap a 25% tariff on Mexico’s goods unless it stops fentanyl trafficking and illegal migration risks setting the trade partners on a collision course over an intractable challenge for both countries. Ahead of the new trade negotiations, Mexico’s greatest weakness has been its historic inability to confront the powerful drug gangs that control about a third of the country. Mexico has had success stopping immigration over the past year, but ending drug smuggling might be an impossible ask, in part because of strong demand in the U.S. (Cordoba and Bergengruen, 11/26)

Donald Trump’s claim that illegal border crossings are out of control — which was among the reasons he cited for the tariffs he said Monday he plans to enact against Mexico, Canada and China — is contradicted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection data showing lower levels of crossings this fall than during the final months of Trump’s first term. Neither his claim that border crossings constitute an unchecked “invasion” nor his depiction of drugs pouring across an “open” and unguarded border has any basis in federal data. (McDaniel and Miroff, 11/26)