Attorney General Pam Bondi explained on Fox Business Monday how China’s most lethal export enters the United States.
The Trump administration closed a longstanding tariff loophole that let China ship cheap goods and deadly drugs into the U.S. without paying duties or facing customs checks. During an appearance on “Kudlow,” Bondi raised alarms over China’s role in America’s fentanyl crisis as she said China manages to ship fentanyl to the U.S.
“The precursors are all made in China. It’s shipped to Mexico, into our country, or through, now, India, other routes, ports of entry, USPS, coming into our country, and they’re killing our kids, and it’s got to stop,” Bondi told host Larry Kudlow.
Bondi said she blamed China for fueling the deadliest drug epidemic in the U.S by flooding American streets with illicit fentanyl precursors.
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“People in China don’t get addicted to fentanyl. [That’s] because they’re shipping it to our country to kill 18-to 34-year-olds. 75,000 Americans are dying every year because of fentanyl. It is a weapon of mass destruction, in my opinion. It’s destroying lives. It’s costing our taxpayers trillions of dollars. And it’s killing our kids, 18 to 34, [the] number one cause of death,” Bondi said.
Holding up a single grain of table salt during the segment, Bondi issued a warning.
“It takes one grain of fentanyl. I put it in here to show you earlier. You can barely see it. It looks like one grain. This is salt, not fentanyl. One grain is all it takes to kill an American citizen, and that’s what these people are doing,” Bondi said.
Bondi also blamed the rise of counterfeit pills and laced recreational drugs for catching young people off guard.
“People don’t know they’re taking it. They think they’re taking a Xanax or an Adderall or doing cocaine or doing some recreational drug, a Molly, the college kid drug of choice, yet it’s laced, and all it takes is one grain of this junk to kill you,” Bondi said.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on April 2 that shuts down the de minimis loophole as the policy had previously allowed shipments valued under $800 to bypass tariffs and avoid thorough customs inspections. In 2022, more than 80% of U.S. imports qualified for the de minimis exemption, with Customs processing over 1.3 billion packages under the rule last year.
Federal agents report that traffickers increasingly used the loophole to smuggle synthetic drugs, including fentanyl. After Congress raised the de minimis threshold in 2016, fentanyl-related overdose deaths in the U.S. spiked by 350%, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. A large share of fentanyl in the U.S. crosses the southern border, but the chemicals often come from China and are increasingly sent through de minimis shipping routes.
(Featured Image Media Credit:Screenshot/Fox Business)
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