China is the main driver behind fentanyl being smuggled into the United States by Mexican drug cartels, according to investigative journalist and author Peter Schweizer.

Schweizer, author of “Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans,” discussed the crisis on “Fentanyl: America’s Silent Epidemic,” part of a DailyWire+ series by Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro on The Divided States of Biden. The author said the fentanyl trade that contributes to tens of thousands of American deaths every year begins in China. 

“They’re the senior partner. The drug cartels are really the junior partner in the fentanyl trade,” Schweizer told Shapiro, speaking of the Chinese regime led by President Xi Jinping.

Ninety percent of fentanyl precursor chemicals shipped from China to Mexico arrive via Mexico’s Port of Manzanillo. The port is run by a Chinese company, according to Schweizer. From the port, the chemicals are taken to a town in northern Mexico close to the U.S. border. About 2,000 Chinese workers work in cartel labs to craft the precursor chemicals into fentanyl and then the fentanyl into pills resembling common drugs such as Vicodin or Adderall.

“Now the drug cartels want to distribute their product in the United States. What do they do? They use Chinese apps. They use Chinese communications devices because they know that China will not share that information with U.S. law enforcement,” Schweizer said.

Money from the drug trade is then laundered through the Chinese financial system.

“The Mexican drug cartels now launder their money in Chinese state-owned banks, and, according to our government, they use Chinese students in the United States on education visas to do this,” Schweizer said.

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China will continue to fuel the fentanyl trade in the United States until U.S. political leadership decides to make China feel real consequences from participating in it, according to Schweizer.

“We need to start looking at punitive actions we can take to damage them. I’m generally a free trade guy, but do you want to have free trade with somebody who is poisoning your citizens in such a systematic way? I don’t think so,” he said. “We’ve got to get tough and we’ve got to make clear: you are going to suffer consequences and real damage until you stop doing this to our people.”