Mexico's president said on Tuesday he had written to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, urging him to help control shipments of fentanyl as he fended off criticism in the U.S. that Mexico is not doing enough to stop trafficking of the synthetic opioid.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador read out the letter to Xi dated March 22 in which he defended efforts to curb supply of the deadly drug, while rounding on U.S. critics, some of whom want Washington to intervene militarily in Mexico.
Speaking at a news conference, Lopez Obrador said the letter took shape after a recent visit by U.S. lawmakers, in which they proposed he speak to China to address the fentanyl threat.Fentanyl has been blamed for fueling a surge in overdose deaths in the U.S., and Republican lawmakers especially have accused Mexico of failing to stop drug cartels producing and moving the powerful painkiller north.
Lopez Obrador says fentanyl laboratories have sprung up in Mexico, and he told Xi that law enforcement had last year destroyed nearly 1,400 clandestine labs mixing the drug with other substances, and seized seven tonnes of it.But Lopez Obrador says Mexico does not produce fentanyl and that cartels buy it direct from Asia. He said in the letter that only 30% of the drug consumed in the U.S. enters via Mexico.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has been at the forefront of U.S. pressure on Mexico, and on Monday he said he would put forward legislation on fentanyl that would include designating Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
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