Angered with the U.S., Mexico’s President Asks China for Help on Fentanyl

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked China for help curbing Mexico’s production of fentanyl, despite his claim last month that Mexico neither produces nor consumes the drug.          
López Obrador has previously expressed outrage with lawmakers from the U.S. putting the blame at Mexico’s feet and suggesting U.S. military intervention. He continued to vent his frustrations Tuesday in a letter to Chinese president Xi Jinping.

“Unjustly, they are blaming us for problems that in large measure have to do with their loss of values, their welfare crisis,” he wrote to Xi, as quoted in the Associated Press. “These positions are in themselves a lack of respect and a threat to our sovereignty, and moreover they are based on an absurd, manipulative, propagandistic and demagogic attitude.”

However, López Obrador also brought up Chinese exports of fentanyl precursors that are ending up in the hands of the cartels.

“I write to you, President Xi Jinping, not to ask your help on these rude threats, but to ask you for humanitarian reasons to help us by controlling the shipments of fentanyl,” he explained.

China has taken some steps to curb fentanyl production, but chemicals that are used in the production of fentanyl continue to pour out of Chinese factories, the Associated Press reported.