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Orange Wang

US President Donald Trump has urged Beijing to take “more aggressive action” to curb the export of drug precursor chemicals, noting to the US Congress that he had raised the issue “directly” with his Chinese counterpart.
Trump’s call comes just days ahead of a planned summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and just a week after security agencies from the two countries praised progress in cooperation on counternarcotics law enforcement.
The call was noted in an annual list sent to the US Congress of designated major source or transit countries for illicit drugs affecting the United States.
Releasing the list on Wednesday, the White House again labelled China “the world’s largest producer of many of the precursor chemicals used to illicitly produce fentanyl, methamphetamine and other deadly synthetic drugs”.
In an annual presidential “determination” sent with the list, Trump noted that the Chinese government last year implemented new requirements for companies to obtain licences before exporting designated precursor chemicals to North America, adding that the move was made at his request.


Still, he accused “criminals” in China of continuing to find ways around those controls by using unregulated precursor chemicals.
“The [People’s Republic of China] needs to take more aggressive action to effectively reduce the flow of these substances by scheduling additional chemical precursors and substances requested by the United States,” Trump wrote in the presidential determination.
“This enhanced cooperation will enable timely prosecution of the criminals responsible for supplying drug traffickers with deadly precursor chemicals.”
Also known as the Majors List, the Presidential Determination on Major Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries has been issued annually for nearly four decades.
The latest version, published this week for the US government’s 2027 financial year beginning on October 1, named 23 countries, including China, India, Mexico and Panama, a composition that is unchanged from last year.
Since 2003, US law has required the president to notify Congress of the designated countries by mid-September each year.
Notably, this year’s release comes just before Trump and Xi are expected to meet in Washington on September 24 for their second face‑to‑face talks of 2026.
Fentanyl and cross‑border drug trafficking have consistently been high on Washington’s agenda in negotiations with Beijing, which are expected to feature at the summit.
During his visit to Beijing in May, Trump “highlighted the need to build on progress in ending the flow of fentanyl precursors into the United States” during his conversation with Xi.
But as the two powers work to keep bilateral ties stable despite intense strategic competition, counternarcotics has emerged as a prominent area in which they could work together.


In a sign of efforts to build an upbeat tone ahead of Xi’s visit to the US, China’s Ministry of Public Security announced last Thursday it had jointly investigated a transnational case involving the manufacture and trafficking of synthetic cannabinoid precursors with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Beijing described the case as “a demonstration of the China-US counternarcotics law enforcement cooperation mechanism’s efficient operation” and “another visible outcome of deepened practical cooperation between Chinese and American counternarcotics agencies”.
According to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas on September 9, the FBI-Ministry of Public Security counternarcotics working group, established in January, allowed collaborative efforts to dismantle the transnational criminal network.
“These results represent a major milestone in US-China counternarcotics cooperation and underscore the effectiveness of sustained, structured coordination between both countries in addressing the international illicit chemical supply chain,” the office said.
In July, FBI director Kash Patel visited Beijing to meet Chinese Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong for discussions that focused on tackling fentanyl precursors.
Ahead of Trump’s visit to China in May, Beijing also announced that the two countries had jointly dismantled a transnational drug-trafficking network.
China was first placed on the Majors List in 1992, then removed for a period from 2005, and was relisted in 2023 under former US president Joe Biden after an expanded definition of precursor chemicals. It has remained on the list since.
US documents state that a country’s presence on the list “is not necessarily a reflection of its government’s current counterdrug efforts, or coordination” with the US, but is “due to a combination of geographic, commercial and economic factors that allow drugs or precursor chemicals to transit or be produced, even if a government has engaged in robust and diligent narcotics control and law enforcement measures”.


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White House designates China as the top source of core synthetic drug chemicals despite joint enforcement progress


White House designates China as the top source of core synthetic drug chemicals despite joint enforcement progress.


Donald Trump presses China on fentanyl precursors ahead of US summit

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}White House designates China as the top source of core synthetic drug chemicals despite joint enforcement progress

White House designates China as the top source of core synthetic drug chemicals despite joint enforcement progress