Washington ‘used fentanyl issue’: China accuses US of ‘blackmail’ over Trump's tariff threat

China has accused the US of exerting "tariff pressure and blackmail" after President Donald Trump threatened to slap an additional 10 per cent duty on imports from China, citing the flow of fentanyl into the country.

These are fresh tariffs which come in addition to the previous 10 per cent one levied on February 4, according to a report by news agency Reuters.

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Trump's latest threat coincides with China's annual parliamentary meet which started on Wednesday. It is to roll out its 2025 economic policies.

Washington has "used the fentanyl issue to insist on tariff pressure and blackmail," the report quoted Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian as having said.

"It has created a serious impact, pressure, coercion and threat to the dialogue and cooperation between the two sides in the field of drug control," she added, warning that this would backfire.

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It has also left China with less than a week to furnish countermeasures.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also had accused China of waging a "reverse" Opium War over fentanyl, in an interview with Fox News.

He alleged that Beijing may be "deliberately" flooding America with it. Despite this, China's commerce ministry said it has some of the world's toughest anti-drug policies.

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The ministry also added that it hopes to return to negotiations with the US as soon as possible, and warned that failure to do so could lead to retaliation.

China's public security ministry on Friday, said it placed seven new precursor chemicals to a domestic control list, along with 24 new ones to an export control list, and also claimed it cracked 151 cases of drug-making materials, of which it seized 1,427.4 tons in the past year, although it didn't say if these were related to fentanyl, according to the report.