Trump praises India opium fight, presses China on fentanyl — SkimNews
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- Trump issued a Presidential Determination on September 16 praising PM Modi and India's government for curbing illicit opium poppy cultivation and bolstering supply-chain integrity under the US-India Drug Policy Framework.
- India was placed on the US's 23-country list of major drug transit or illicit drug-producing nations for fiscal year 2027, alongside China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mexico, Colombia and others.
- India was NOT among the four countries — Afghanistan, Bolivia, Burma and Colombia — that the US deemed to have "failed demonstrably" over the prior 12 months to meet counternarcotics obligations.
- The Trump administration clarified that inclusion on the list does not imply a government is failing to combat drug trafficking, and can reflect geographic, commercial and economic factors even when counter-narcotics measures are strong.
- Trump identified China as the world's largest producer of precursor chemicals for fentanyl and methamphetamine, and said he had raised the issue directly with President Xi Jinping.
- Beijing imposed licensing requirements last year for companies exporting designated precursor chemicals to North America, but Trump said criminals circumvent those controls using unregulated substances, and called for additional chemicals to be brought under controls.
Why it matters: India's list placement alongside China and Pakistan carries diplomatic weight, yet the administration explicitly shielded it from the harsher "failed demonstrably" label reserved for four nations, signaling a friend-foe split within the same document. For Beijing, Trump's demand for expanded precursor controls — despite last year's export licensing regime — keeps fentanyl supply-chain cooperation as a persistent pressure point in the broader US-China relationship.
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