FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that the fentanyl crisis facing the U.S. is close to being “turned off,” crediting the Trump administration’s aggressive strategy of focusing on China as the primary source of the deadly opioid’s ingredients.
Patel discussed his November trip to Beijing on “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo,” stating the administration is working to end a problem he claimed the preceding Biden administration “largely ignored.” His visit reportedly made him the first FBI director to visit the Communist nation in a decade.
Engagement with China
“We set this in motion—we under President Trump’s leadership and strong leadership—in engaging [Chinese] President Xi Jinping on the fentanyl crisis,” Patel said. He emphasized the scale of the issue, labeling the crisis a “national security crisis of epic proportions” that he claims led to the deaths of “hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Americans” under the prior administration.
Patel explained that President Trump initiated engagement with President Xi Jinping and put Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice (DOJ) in motion to solidify a deal.
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“This opioid crisis is going to be turned off. Americans are no longer going to lose their life to manufactured synthesis opioids like fentanyl,” the FBI chief stressed, describing his trip as the final step to solidify the agreement.
Focus on Chemical Precursors
The core of the administration’s strategy, according to Patel, revolves around restricting the flow of the chemical precursors used to manufacture fentanyl. Unlike drugs like cocaine or marijuana, fentanyl is “purely chemically created.”
“If you take the ingredients, these precursors… and you shut off their flow, then the Mexican drug cartels cannot make it. It’s that simple,” Patel asserted.
He claimed that the Biden administration had failed to list any precursors, whereas the Trump administration “got it done listing all 13 precursors and restricting all seven chemicals, essentially shutting off the pipeline” that allows Mexican drug traffickers to create fentanyl.
Patel stated the agreement is already in place and predicted “immediate results and immediate American lives saved by the hundreds of thousands.”
Days following Patel’s visit, China’s Ministry of Commerce confirmed the country will implement stricter regulations on chemicals used in fentanyl production. President Trump also wrote on Truth Social shortly after his late October 2025 meeting with Xi that “China has strongly stated that they will work diligently” to stop the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.
Crisis Background
According to data from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), there were over 70,000 reported deaths related to synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, in both 2022 and 2023. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that unintentional injuries, which largely include drug overdose and poisoning, were the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 45 in 2023.
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