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 Trump said shortly before arriving in Beijing he would discuss as a
"top priority" stopping the "flood of cheap and deadly" fentanyl
"manufactured in China" when he meets Xi.
"Every year drug trafficking destroys millions and millions of
lives," Trump said in Beijing, standing next to Xi at the end of
formal talks between the two.
"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," he
added.
"A special emphasis will be placed on the new phenomenon - fentanyl
- destroying lives by the millions. We're going to be focusing on it
very strongly, the president and myself," Trump said, without
elaborating.
Speaking later to reporters, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
said Trump and Xi agreed to take new steps.
"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," Tillerson said.
"The president 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," he added, referring to Xi.
China's drug control agency last week disputed Trump's claim that
most of the synthetic drug fentanyl at the heart of the U.S. opioid
crisis was produced in China.
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Opioids include prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, a
highly addictive synthetic drug 50 to 100 times more potent than
morphine.
The Centers for Disease Control estimated that 20,000 Americans were
killed by fentanyl last year, surpassing common painkillers and
heroin for the first time.
American law enforcement agencies and drug control experts say most
of the fentanyl distributed in the United States, as well as
precursor chemicals, originate from China.
While Chinese officials dispute these claims, Beijing has taken
steps to crack down on the production and export of synthetic drugs,
and has placed fentanyl and 22 other related compounds on its list
of controlled substances.
(Reporting by Steve Holland and Philip Wen; Writing by Ben
Blanchard)
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