Trump claims China will soon execute fentanyl dealers
China sends deadly synthetic opioid chemicals to Mexican cartels, who then press them into pills or add them in powder form to heroin and cocaine. Trump again vowed to take action while standing next to 'angel families' who have lost loved ones. 'I think we're going to work it out so that China is going to end up going from that to giving the death penalty to the people that create this fentanyl and send it into our country,' Trump said.
He said China would take the action soon even as the countries work through a trade clash after Trump imposed sanctions. 'I have a very good relationship with President Xi of China, but I imposed a 20 percent tariff on China because of the fentanyl. And I call it a penalty. It's a penalty because China delivers much of the fentanyl,' Trump said.
Trump said it would have happened sooner were it not for the 2020 election , which he again called 'rigged' despite losing to Joe Biden by 7 million votes. 'I believe that we would have had that deal long time ago. I shook hands with him, and that we had a rigged election, and we had somebody else come in and they didn't know anything about a deal for the death penalty,' Trump said, before referencing the China move. 'I believe that's going to happen soon,' he added.
China already imposes the death penalty for certain drug offenses . The country has long been criticized for denying defendants' rights and transparency in its judicial system, with Amnesty International saying it executes thousands of people each year without saying how many. An Amnesty International report from April showed a 32 percent increase in executions worldwide during 2024, with 'thousands' in China.
Trump himself has talked about using the death penalty to go after drug dealers in the U.S., and praised the mandatory minimum jail sentences that are part of the legislation he signed to permanently add fentanyl to Schedule 1 under the Controlled Substances Act. The bill he signed, the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act, got bipartisan support in Congress, although Trump signaled out Republican backers at the White House.
'It's a big deal, as they will tell you – meaning anyone caught trafficking these illicit poisons will be punished with a mandatory 10 year minimum sentence in prison. We'll be getting the drug dealers, pushers and peddlers off our street,' Trump said. After mentioning the China death penalty, Trump continued: 'I believe that's going to happen soon, but as of today, all fentanyl related substances will be banned forever, and those who traffic in these deadly poisons will be put behind bars for a very long period of time.'
Back in February, Trump referenced the death penalty conversation he says he had with Xi while speaking to a group of governors. 'If you notice that every country that has the death penalty has no drug problem,' Trump said.
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