Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARR. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Washington State and Chairman Mast for supporting the legislation. I thank my friend, the ranking member, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks), for his bipartisan support, as well.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my legislation, H.R. 747, the Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act.

The fentanyl crisis is one of the most significant threats to our country and continues to plague families and neighbors across the United States.

My home State of Kentucky, sadly, has been ravaged by the fentanyl crisis.

Drug overdoses are the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45, and fentanyl is responsible for nearly 70 percent of these deaths.

Last year, the DEA seized more than 60 million fentanyl-laced fake pills in the United States and almost 8,000 pounds of fentanyl power equal to more than 380 million lethal doses of fentanyl.

As of last month, the 2025 seizures of fentanyl equate to over 232 million deadly doses and 70,000 of our fellow Americans succumbed to this poison. In 2024, over 1,400 Kentuckians lost their lives to a drug overdose, including fentanyl.

Unfortunately, this scourge has spread with the help of our greatest strategic adversary, the People's Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party.

As a member of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, we conducted an investigation, and that investigation in the last Congress established that the PRC Government, under the control of the Chinese Communist Party, directly subsidizes the manufacturing and export of illicit fentanyl materials and other synthetic narcotics through tax rebates.

Many of these substances are illegal under the PRC's own laws and have no known legal use worldwide. Like its export tax rebates for legitimate goods, the CCP's subsidies of illegal drugs incentivize international synthetic drug sales from the People's Republic of China, and the CCP never disclosed this program.

In addition, the select committee found that the CCP gave monetary grants and awards to companies openly trafficking illicit fentanyl materials and other synthetic narcotics. There are even examples of some of these companies enjoying site visits from provincial PRC Government officials, who complimented them for their impact on the provincial economy.

The CCP holds an ownership interest in several PRC companies tied to drug trafficking, including a PRC Government prison connected to human rights abuses, owning a drug trafficking chemical company, and a publicly traded PRC company hosting thousands of instances of open drug trafficking on its sites.

The PRC failed to prosecute fentanyl and precursor manufacturers. Rather than investigating drug traffickers, the Government of the PRC security services have not cooperated with U.S. law enforcement and have even notified targets of U.S. investigations when they receive requests for assistance.

The PRC allows for the open sale of fentanyl precursors and other illicit materials on the extensively monitored and controlled PRC internet. A review of just seven e-commerce sites found over 31,000 instances of PRC companies selling illicit chemicals with obvious ties to drug trafficking. Undercover communications with PRC drug trafficking companies revealed an eagerness to engage in clearly illicit drug sales with no fear of reprisal. The government in China censors content about domestic drug sales, but leaves export-focused narcotic content untouched.

We know that China has historically been and remains the primary source of fentanyl in global circulation through the production of these precursor chemicals and outsourcing the final production to cartel labs in Mexico. That is why it is paramount that Congress pass my legislation that is being considered here today, the Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act.

My bill amends the Fentanyl Sanctions Act to expand the definition of ``foreign opioid trafficker'' to include certain Chinese entities and government officials that fail to take steps to prevent opioid trafficking, subjecting them to sanctions. The bill also requires the President to determine whether the heads of the National Narcotics Control Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the General Administration of Customs, and the National Medical Products Administration of the Government of the PRC are foreign opioid traffickers.

We must attack the production of fentanyl by targeting the source of precursors in China.

Chinese producers of synthetic opioids and opioid precursors and senior government and Chinese political officials' culpability does not end when their precursor products land in Mexico or illegally cross our southern border. We must look at every step of fentanyl's deadly supply chain and hold our adversaries accountable.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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