America's Talking - Trump slices China fentanyl tariff in half following meeting with Xi

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump feels confident the flow of fentanyl from China will be curbed following a “great meeting” with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea. The meeting prompted Trump to cut in half the tariffs the U.S. put on China due to the flow of the deadly drug. “I've agreed, as you know, I put a 20% tariff on China because of the fentanyl coming in, it's a big tariff, and based on [Xi’s] statements today, I reduced it by 10%, so it's 10% instead of 20% effective immediately. I believe he's going to work very hard to stop the death that's coming in,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on his way back to Washington. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America's Talking, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAaleb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. President Trump is back at the White House after spending the week in Asia, where he visited with leaders of Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, and finally, U.S. adversary China. President Trump said he made significant progress on securing trade deals with the Asian nations. And with China, President Trump says he's lowering tariffs there after China agreed to work to slow the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. China has been making the precursors of fentanyl and shipping them to Mexico, where drug cartels then manufacture the precursors into fentanyl and smuggle them across the U.S. border. Joining me to discuss this is Sarah Roderette Fitch, White House Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Sarah, let's start with China and the fentanyl deal. Tell us more about it. Yes, so the president going into this was pretty confident that he was going to be able to talk China into curbing that flow.

it went from, he had a 20% tariff against China for that, and then he sliced it in half to 10% upon his, his discussions with President G. And it's very important, obviously, and that's actually become such a focal point of one of the focal points of the president's second term is he knows the whole fentanyl thing and the drug. And now, you know, combating the drug trade and everything like that. So I think it's really interesting. he's just going to the straight straight to the source. Of course, during the Biden years, fentanyl deaths in the U.S. skyrocketed. Tens of thousands of people have been killed over the last decade or so from fentanyl. And one of the things Trump has done is part of his plan to reshape global trade is to use trade and tariffs as, a way to force other countries, such as China, from stopping the flow of people and illegal

narcotics into the U.S. He had put a, what, a 20% fentanyl tariff on China, and he lowered that to 10% because he thinks China is going to do what it tells him he's going to do. Yes, yes. And, I mean, there's other stuff that's, you know, with going on with China as well. It's not just, you know, the fentanyl stuff too. But as far as like, you know, with the drug trade in China, there's other stuff that's going on like in South America, too. As you see now, the president shifted this past week. He announced, they announced the carrier USS Gerald Ford is moving from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean or the Southcom area of responsibility. But part of that is there's actually been China has been working sort of, they have sort of an ally in.

Venezuela and been able to do some stuff down there. And so as we know, the president has been targeting boats, boats in the Pacific and then Western Pacific around Columbia. And then, of course, Venezuela, he's these drug, these drug narcotic boats. But it's very interesting. All this sort of stuff came down before this meeting the whole nuclear, wanting to do the nuclear testing. It's sort of sending a message. I think all this stuff is sending a message to China saying, hey, we're, we're, we're watching you at this point. I mean, obviously he had a very friendly sort of, as he said, it was a very good meeting with Xi, and they're planning to meet again in April, and then the president in China, and then the president indicated that there will be a meeting here in the United States

after that, whether it's late spring, early summer, possibly in that time frame. But opening this door with China, but also sort of, you know, it's friendly, but it's saying, hey, we're kind of keeping an eye on sort of things. And our military, too, and also kind of saying, hey, we're, we're keeping an eye on what's going on the Caribbean with, they've, they've done exercises. China, Russia, Iran have done military exercises in Venezuela and around Venezuela. And they know that there's, they've been able to have, they had, there's more of an increase there for the Chinese Navy and in that area. And so the president's related saying, hey, we're watching you over in the Pacific because we have, we have in Japan.

there's a forward it's the only forward deployed carrier in the world is in Japan right by you know there to kind of protect you know from China and everything like that so it's always for keeping China in check in a way. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. has now destroyed, bombed what more than a dozen what he calls characterize as drug boats heading to the U.S. with these illegal illegal. narcotics. The Trump administration has been criticized for that, but he says it's necessary because it's a non-traditional war that these cartels and the Venezuelan government and others have been waging against the U.S. and killing thousands of U.S. citizens who have taken the lethal drug. What's going on with those drug boats? Yeah, I mean, it's almost a daily occurrence now at this point targeting these boats. I think the latest one was it was a showed video that it was a submersal. It wasn't completely, I can't say it was like a sub, but it was it was kind of right

there under the water. It is very interesting how they are they are targeting these. And these cartels have been already, they've been designated terror organizations. So that sort of opens it up to more being able to sort of target them in that way. But again, it's sending a message to these cartels, to governments like in Venezuela, where it's Maduro, it's run by Maduro, which the Trump administration, that's, you know, there's, there's a lot of saying, hey, the guy was, you know, not elected, legitimately. There's, there's been a lot of back and forth on that. And then Columbia. And it's sending a message. I mean, we're not directly going after Venezuela yet, but it's going after these, these boats and everything that is. It is, it is sending a strong

messages. We're going to take them out and with this carrier and not just with a carrier, but a strike group. It has other, other ships they're going there with it. So that is sending a huge, strong message to the Maduro regime and all these other ones. And not only that, I mean, there is, you know, what ports are they using there? You know, what their ports are coming out of? You know, that, hey, why aren't you control them? Why aren't you doing this? And so, and so it's very interesting that, yes, this presence that they're sending down there is a massive, is a massive message to the cartels. And, you know, it's, we're going to, we're going to, you know, take our military and we're going to, you know, focus on you guys and we're going to take you out.

Obviously, the carrier's not there yet. So we'll see how that all, you know, how that all pans out. But I did ask, last week when I was at the White House, I did ask the president and secretary of war, Pete Heggseth, about there is a base, well, closed in 2004. It's called Roosevelt Rose is a Navy base in Puerto Rico, which is 600 miles from Venezuela. It would be, and it was close part of the BRAC-based realignment stuff. And it is now, there's reports that it's being used for some operations. But I asked if there were plans to expand it, to basically reopen the base, to have ships there. There's a large airfield there. They could have a lot of operations, which would be close to, in close proximity to Venezuelans and those other countries.

and obviously be a really, you know, help with that, sort of that counter-narcotic operations. And I did cite, you know, the buildup of China, their presence, China, Iran, Russia, in that region. And the Secretary of State acknowledged that that was going on. He didn't really give me necessarily much of an answer, but saying, hey, they were on it. And I think it was, and of course the president was, he's all about military expansion. That was kind of his response. I wasn't sure if he was talking about, you know, that base in particular, or if he was talking about, you know, putting more people down there and having just, you know,

expanding it. But it is a very interesting sort of prospect that if that were to happen, I think it would be sending a very big signal saying, hey, this is, this is definitely going to be a long-term thing in a bigger, in a bigger way. That's kind of why I asked the question, is just trying to get engaged where this operation is going. And, of course, the next day the announcement came that the Gerald Ford would be shifting. down there to Southcom. So it'll be interesting to see how this sort of unfolds and where it goes from here. Sarah, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep up with this story and more

at thecentersquare.com.