Comment by defrost
1 day ago
The challenge in international drug operations was not to get China to stop selling bricks to house builders to but get China to cooperate in stopping the sale of bricks to groups that only use bricks to throw through windows and at heads.
That’s tricky because if the US asks to stop the sale of precursors used for making medicines to an organization they name, it’s not always clear whether they are doing illegal sanctions or legitimate activities with the consent of the country in question.
China probably just wants to be a neutral supplier and stay out of it.
Tricky, yes. Insurmountable, no.
Despite the difficulty the former US administration was able to diplomatically achieve cooperation from China on this matter which bore fruit and gained traction until a seris of wild accusations and tariffs from a later administration killed a number of US / China working arrangements.
See, for example, The Hidden Cost of Trump’s Trade War on China (March 18, 2025) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/trump-china-trade... written by a former deputy assistant secretary for US international narcotics and law enforcement affairs.