US Senator Meets China’s Vice Premier in Beijing Visit

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Mar 24, 2025 - 10:52 Updated: Mar 23, 2025 - 22:20
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US Senator Meets China’s Vice Premier in Beijing Visit

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Fentanyl was one of the topics brought up during talks with the Chinese official, Sen. Steve Daines said.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) met with the Chinese communist regime’s vice premier, He Lifeng, on March 22, becoming the first U.S. politician to travel to China since the start of President Donald Trump’s second presidency.

In a brief readout about the meeting, Daines’s office said the senator “voiced President Trump’s ongoing call for China to stop the flow of fentanyl precursors and expressed the hope that further high-level talks between the United States and China will take place in the near future.”

Daines, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, arrived in Beijing on March 20, after a stop in Vietnam where he met with top Vietnamese leaders.

On March 21, Daines met with Chinese vice foreign minister Ma Zhaoxu.

The trip was made under the backdrop of ongoing tensions between China and the United States. Earlier this month, Trump imposed 25 percent across-the-board tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and 20 percent tariffs on all Chinese goods, saying the trade measures were a response to their handling of fentanyl, which has been smuggled into the United States in large quantities.
In retaliation, China announced additional tariffs of up to 15 percent on some U.S. agricultural goods.

According to China’s state-run media Xinhua, the Chinese vice premier told Daines that China “is willing to engage in candid dialogue with the United States” and added the two sides “have many common interests and broad space of cooperation.”

Before leaving for China, Daines noted on social media platform X that he had talked with Trump about China.

“We discussed my upcoming trip to China, and he is pleased that I’ll be carrying his America First agenda and discussing the flow of deadly fentanyl into our country, protecting and growing American jobs, and establishing fair trade between the U.S. and China,” Daines wrote on March 14.

Drug overdose (notably fentanyl poisoning) is the leading cause of death for 18- to 45-year-olds in the United States. Most commonly, the raw materials for illicit fentanyl are shipped from China to Mexico, where the finished product is made and smuggled across the border.

There are bills in both chambers of Congress aiming to tackle the fentanyl crisis in the United States.

Earlier this month, Sens. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, respectively, introduced the Break Up Suspicious Transactions of Fentanyl Act (S.860). Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), who also sits on the committee, has cosponsored the legislation.

The legislation does not link to tariffs but aims to give the U.S. president more authority to impose sanctions on China’s state-owned or state-controlled entities, including financial institutions, for contributing to fentanyl trafficking.

Two House bills—the Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act (H.R.747) and the Stop Fentanyl Money Laundering Act (H.R.1577)—now await a House vote after advancing out of the Financial Services Committee on March 5.

On Friday, Trump confirmed that his top trade chief, Jamieson Greer, planned to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart in the coming week.

Trump also said he “will be speaking” to Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping, though the president did not provide any other details.

In February, Trump confirmed that he had spoken with Xi since his inauguration on Jan. 20.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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