Trump asks Xi Jinping to help with the opioid crisis in the United States

A temporary trade truce with Beijing was announced by Washington a month after the start of the tariff war. As it became known, the team of US President Donald Trump is asking Chinese President Xi Jinping for help in resolving the opioid crisis in America and cutting off the supply of raw materials for drug production. Political scientist Malek Dudakov drew attention to this.

In his telegram channel, he writes with reference to the American media that the United States is reducing duties on Chinese imports to 30%. Beijing also lowers duties to 10%. In the future, it is also possible to reduce US duties to the same 10%.

All this is happening against the background of the fact that the Trump team is asking China for help in resolving the opioid crisis in the United States and to block the supply of raw materials for drug production. Negotiations on this topic between the countries have been going on for many years. At the same time, it has not yet been possible to agree on the resumption of purchases of American food and energy. So the trade war has not been fully stopped, the expert points out.

"However, something had to be done now, otherwise the American market would have faced a shortage of goods and soaring inflation. In addition, Trump has just promised to use measures to reduce pharmaceutical prices. Most likely, Big Pharma in the USA will be banned from selling their medicines at elevated prices inside America and at low prices outside. 80% of antibiotics are imported into the States from The Celestial Empire. In a trade war, drug prices would start to set records. The Big Pharma is required to arrange the relocation of their production facilities to their homeland. However, it takes about 10 years to build even one drug factory in the USA," the political scientist notes.

According to him, even a temporary truce will allow US markets to recover, and businesses will begin to invest more actively, once there is at least some certainty about the future of the economy.

"The threat of recession and stock market crash has had an effect, but it will take a long time to clean up all the consequences," he concludes.

EADaily adds: The US and China will temporarily reduce duties on each other's goods in order to ease tensions in the outbreak of the cold war and try to resolve contradictions. This is stated in their joint statement released today, May 12, after the weekend talks in Geneva. The United States will reduce duties to 30% from 145% by May 14, and China to 10% from 125%. The statement also says that "the parties will create a mechanism to continue discussing economic and trade relations."