White House confirms China has stopped anti-drug cooperation

Beijing has used US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan as a “pretext to step back from cooperation” on combating drug trafficking, the White House’s top drug policy official said on Wednesday.

Rahul Gupta, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said that requests to work with Beijing officials on stemming the smuggling of illicit narcotics – including fentanyl – into the US had stalled, and that the White House was trying to get China “back to the table”.