China gives TAX BREAKS to the fentanyl-making firms behind some 80,000 US overdose deaths each year: House report says Beijing sows 'chaos and devastation'

China's leaders give tax breaks to companies that produce fentanyl chemicals and cause some 80,000 US overdose deaths each year, a damning House report warns.

Beijing is fueling America's fentanyl crisis by subsidizing the manufacture of materials used by traffickers to make pills outside the country, say papers from a committee on China.

Researchers accessed a government website that revealed tax rebates for the production of specific fentanyl precursors and other synthetics — as long as those companies sell them outside of China.

'Through its actions, as our report has revealed, the Chinese Communist Party is telling us that it wants more fentanyl entering our country,' said Rep Mike Gallagher, the Republican chairman of the special House committee.

The carnage of fentanyl deaths on US streets is underpinned by government tax breaks for Chinese chemical producers, says a damning report 

Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden agreed in November to work together against fentanyl and other drugs

'It wants the chaos and devastation that has resulted from the epidemic.'

America suffered more than 111,000 overdose deaths in the year to April 2023 — more than 70 percent of them due to fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, says the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November announced a resumption of bilateral cooperation on counternarcotics, with a focus on reducing the flow of precursor chemicals and synthetic drug trafficking.

But this week's congressional report raises questions about whether Beijing can be trusted.

The report's findings were released Tuesday as part of a hearing examining China's role in the fentanyl epidemic in the US. 

Inexpensive fentanyl is increasingly cut into other drugs, often without the buyers' knowledge.

The Chinese government not only subsidizes the manufacture of precursor chemicals, but the report says it has also thwarted investigations into illicit drug-makers.

When US law enforcers formally request assistance, Beijing warns the firms they are targets of an investigation, the report claims.

Researchers said multiple current and former federal agents have described the notification of targets, leading those targets to revamp operations and make it harder to detect their activities.

The drug was initially produced in India and China and mailed to recipients across North America. Makeshift labs have since sprung up in Mexico to receive the precursor chemicals, mix them or press them into pills, and smuggle them into the US

Former US Attorney General William Barr says China's government is 'knee deep' in the export of fentanyl chemicals 

Members of the Sinaloa Cartel preapre drugs for the US market at a safe house in Culiacan

Former US Attorney General William Barr told lawmakers that it's hard to believe that a country with the most pervasive surveillance system in the world is not fully aware of the massive drug trafficking taking place.

He said the committee's report 'uncovered persuasive evidence' that China's government is not just a bystander, but is 'knee deep' in sponsoring and facilitating the export of fentanyl chemicals.

Barr urged the US to use its trade and economic power to seek greater enforcement from Chinese authorities.

He also said victims should bring civil actions against companies and individuals involved in distributing the precursors and synthetic drugs.

'I don't think we can count on their goodwill, as we have in the past,' Barr said.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the committee, said Chinese companies are also currently selling synthetic opioids on their websites.

He pointed to a screenshot of one such solicitation that committee staff found just Monday night in advance of the hearing.

Immigrants seeking asylum in the US are processed by border agents after crossing into Arizona from Mexico. Guards told DailyMail.com that cartels get drugs across the border by using migrants as decoys 

This image from Mexico's national defense forces shows a makeshift drugs lab in northwest Mexico, where officers discovered precursor chemicals, fentanyl paste, weapons and drug making gear, from November 2021  

Such posts must be taken down immediately, he said.

'There are hundreds of these website posts — hundreds,' Krishnamoorthi said.

'This is completely unacceptable.'

The chemical companies providing fentanyl precursors often have legitimate businesses with customers around the world.

The report said fentanyl precursors and other synthetic narcotics are a 'side hustle' designed to maximize profits.

Businesses that deal in fentanyl precursors and narcotics on the side are particularly vulnerable to US sanctions.

The same goes for companies such as banks, online platforms and shipping companies that enable illicit fentanyl trade.

The report calls on Congress to clarify the power of the president to sanction those involved in drug trafficking.

Washington should also slap sanctions on violators and reports back to Congress regularly on how often sanctions have been undertaken.

It also calls for forming a task force that would place intelligence, economic and enforcement resources under one roof.

The head of the group would report directly to the attorney general of the US and serve as a special assistant to the president on the National Security Council with authority over the opioids portfolio.

Fentanyl is commonly mixed with drugs like heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine, or pressed into pills that resemble other prescription opioids. On the street, it is known as everything from 'blues' to China Girl, and Goodfellas.

Tests by the Drug Enforcement Administration show that four in ten pills sold in the US have at least 2mg of fentanyl — the equivalent of about five grains of salt — a dose that is considered potentially lethal.

The agency warns that 'one pill can kill'.

Synthetic opioids kill more Americans every year than died in the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars combined

DEA officers seized a million fake pills containing fentanyl at a home in Inglewood, California. The drug is so potent that users can easily take a lethal dose  

The Facebook group Lost Voices of Fentanyl has tens of thousands of members who pay tribute to their loved ones who were claimed by the drug.

In Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and other big cities, the sight of homeless people collapsed on sidewalks, puffing fentanyl smoke and lurching from moments of slumber to bouts of violent shivering have become all too common.

The devastation has become so bad that fentanyl flows across the US-Mexico border have become a flashpoint between Democrats and Republicans.

Former president Donald Trump has said he would deploy military assets to fight the fentanyl crisis and 'inflict maximum damage' on Mexican cartel operations if elected in 2024.

He would also seek the death penalty to convicted drug dealers and human traffickers, he said.

'Under my leadership, we took the drug and fentanyl crisis head on, and we achieved the first reduction in overdose deaths in more than 30 years,' Trump said in a campaign video.

'Sadly, under Joe Biden, our hard-won progress has been surrendered, along with the surrender of our southern border.'

Synthetic opioids — mostly fentanyl — now kill more Americans every year than died in the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars combined.

The groundwork for the US fentanyl epidemic was laid more than 20 years ago, with aggressive over-prescribing of the synthetic opioid oxycodone.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates there were more than 111,000 overdose deaths in the year to April 2023. Many were due to fentanyl, pictured

As US authorities clamped down on its prescription, users moved to heroin, which the Sinaloa cartel happily supplied.

But making its own fentanyl — far more potent and versatile than heroin — in small, easily concealed labs was a game changer.

The cartel went from its first makeshift fentanyl lab to a network of labs concentrated in the northern state of Sinaloa in less than a decade.

A single cartel 'cook' can press fentanyl into 100,000 counterfeit pills every day to fool Americans into thinking they're taking Xanax, Percocet or oxycodone.

The pills are smuggled over the border to supply drug addicts across the US, including the homeless users seen stumbling around on the streets of San Francisco, New York and other big cities.

Fentanyl is so cheap to make that the cartel reaps massive profits even wholesaling the drug at 50 cents per pill, investigators say.

The drug's potency makes it particularly dangerous.

The narcotic dose of fentanyl is so close to the lethal dose that a pill meant to ensure a high for a habituated user can easily kill a less experienced person taking something they didn't know was fentanyl.