, Columnist
China-U.S. Drug Deal Is a Palliative, Not a Cure
Unless Beijing starts to intervene much more aggressively in commercial life, it’s hard to see how any future pact can resolve tensions.
Opium wars aren't good or easy to win.
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
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If you were hoping for the U.S. and China to seal a wide-ranging pact in the next few months to avert a further round of tariff wars, their speed in agreeing a crackdown on the modern opium trade in Buenos Aires looks like good news, right?
Wrong. The White House’s triumphant declaration that President Xi Jinping “in a wonderful humanitarian gesture, has agreed to designate Fentanyl as a Controlled Substance” misses the fact that multiple varieties of the drug have been controlled substances in China for more than three years.