Trump and Xi Committed to Try To End U.S. Opioid Crisis

PRESS RELEASE

Trump and Xi Committed to Try To End U.S. Opioid Crisis

Nov. 9, 2017 (EIRNS)—At the summit meeting between visiting U.S President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping, the two leaders committed themselves to trying to end the opioid crisis in the United States. On Oct. 26, President Trump had declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency, telling an audience in the White House that

"we can be the generation that ends the opioid epidemic. This epidemic is a national health emergency. Nobody has seen anything like what is going on now,"

according to CNN.

Upon declaring the health emergency, Trump had also pointed out that fentanyl, a major cause of opioid-related deaths in the United States, comes in from China. On that occasion, he also said he intended to discuss stopping "the flood of cheap and deadly fentanyl manufactured in China" when he meets President Xi Jinping during his state visit to Beijing.

Following the Trump-Xi meeting at Beijing on Nov. 9, while standing next to President Xi, Trump said,

"Every year drug trafficking destroys millions and millions of lives. Today, President Xi and I discussed ways we can enhance coordination to better counter the deadly drug trade and to stop the lethal flow of poisonous drugs into our countries and into our communities,"

Reuters reported.

Speaking later to reporters, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson added that,

"On the critical issue of opioids, we made some good progress to curb the flow of harmful narcotics into the United States in order to save American lives. The President [Xi] committed to taking new actions, including agreements to control the export and movement of fentanyl precursors, sharing intelligence on drug trafficking, and exchanging trafficking information,"

Reuters reported.