The Dictatorship
China restricts chemicals after fentanyl deal with Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — China said Monday it is making good on its pledge to crack down on chemicals that can be used to make fentanyl, a key issue for President Donald Trump during recent talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as they aimed to take steps to ease a trade war.
Beijing announced new export restrictions on 13 “drug-making” chemicals to the United States, Canada and Mexico, including those that are used to produce the synthetic opioid blamed for tens of thousands of overdose deaths in the U.S. every year. After meeting Xi in South Korea last month, Trump said China would help end the fentanyl crisis and he would ease a related tariff from 20% to 10%.
It shows the back-and-forth nature of U.S.-Chinese cooperation on fentanyl over the years and lessens the recent tensions after Trump launched his campaign of tariffsincluding those against the country that is the top exporter of pharmaceutical ingredients, such as the chemicals used to make fentanyl.
“What the Trump administration has essentially agreed with Beijing is for Beijing to restart what it had been doing during the second part of 2024,” before Trump returned to the White House, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow focusing on the opioid crisis at the Brookings Institution.
Asked for the White House’s response to the Chinese export restrictions and whether the deal essentially resumes the cooperation from China that was disrupted by Trump’s tariffs, deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said the president “has taken every possible action to stop the flow of illicit narcotics into our country, from securing the border to striking drug boats to curbing fentanyl precursors.”
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Cooperation on fentanyl has long been a sticking point in relations between Beijing and Washington.
In 2019, during Trump’s first term, Beijing took a huge step by restricting fentanyl and related substances at the request of the U.S. president. When tensions rose between Beijing and Washington over human rights issues, China started to stall counternarcotics cooperation in 2020 before making it formal two years later.
The U.S. in 2023 listed China as a “major illicit drug-producing country” before then-President Joe Biden met Xi in California to secure Beijing’s agreement to cooperate.
Shortly afterward, Beijing restricted more substances, including another synthetic opioid and chemicals that are added to fentanyl. Other key fentanyl precursors were curtailed in September 2024.
After Trump took office, he slapped two 10% tariffs on China, accusing it of failing to stem the flow of chemicals. Beijing responded with its own tariffs and pausing cooperation on fentanyl.
“The Trump administration made the big error in completely discounting and ignoring what China was doing with the U.S. in 2024 and just coming in with guns blazing” on tariffs, Felbab-Brown said.
That, she said, has allowed Beijing to bargain to resume measures that were already on the table in the second half of 2024 and “get double points.”
Also on Monday, Beijing took another step aimed at addressing U.S. concerns, signaling tougher enforcement with a public notice by the China National Narcotics Control Commission urging businesses to comply with tax codes, customs rules, internet laws and foreign currency regulations.
The chemicals newly restricted by Beijing can still be exported without a license to other countries besides the three in North America that were named in the Chinese Commerce Ministry announcement. Fentanyl is mostly manufactured in Mexico.
The challenge remains that the “very basic chemicals” with widespread, legitimate uses in chemistry, agriculture and the pharmaceutical industry are increasingly tapped to make synthetic opioids, Felbab-Brown said.
In September, Trump continued to list China as a “major illicit drug-producing country.”
“For too long, (China) has enabled illicit fentanyl production in Mexico and elsewhere by subsidizing the export of the precursor chemicals needed to produce these deadly drugs and failing to prevent Chinese companies from selling these precursors to known criminal cartels,” the presidential statement said.
As awards season progresses, celebrities continue to speak out against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown — especially in Minneapolis. Though some stars have opted for a slight nod of resistance with pins that say “ICE out,” others have been more vocal in their stances.
Upon accepting the Grammy Award for Best Música Urbana Album on Sunday night, Bad Bunny got straight to the point.
“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE out,” the Puerto Rican performer said as soon as he approached the podium with award in hand.
After a standing ovation and cheers from the crowd, he continued.
“We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.”
This is not the first time the artist has spoken out against the Trump administration’s rhetoric against immigrants in the United States. Last year, he announced he would no longer tour in the U.S., which drew criticism from some right-wing commentators.
Despite that pushback, Bad Bunny scored the headlining spot at this year’s Super Bowl and said he decided to “do just one date in the United States.”
The album Bad Bunny accepted the award for, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” also won Album of the Year, becoming the first primarily Spanish-language album to win the distinction in the ceremony’s 68-year history.
Kathleen Creedon is a platforms editor for MS NOW. She previously worked as a web producer for Vanity Fair.
Despite a brutal critical reception“Melania,” the documentary about the first lady released on January 30, outperformed expectations in its opening weekend.
“Melania” earned more than $7 million at the domestic U.S. box office, the highest opening for a non-concert documentary in decades. Most recently, the best-performing film in the same genre was Stephen Gray and Chris Radtke’s “After Death,” which opened at around $5 million domestically in 2023. With an opening box office of almost $24 million, Michael Moore’s 2004 film “Fahrenheit 9/11” remains the highest-grossing political documentary.
Critics, however, have been less kind to “Melania.” The documentary has received an aggregate rating of 10% among professional critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (which is owned by Versant, MS NOW’s parent company), and negative reviews from major news outlets abound. Writing for MS NOW, media critic Jen Cheney said the film is “so devoid of substance that it feels wrong to call it a documentary” and suggested “This thing is basically ‘Let Them Eat Cake: The Movie,’” invoking Marie Antoinette, the French queen beheaded during the revolution.
Still, the film about the model-turned-political figure found its audience. Media analytics company Comscore reported that roughly 72% of Melania’s audience during opening weekend were women, and 72% were over the age of 55. The majority of the movie-goers were also white.
Directed by Brett Ratner in his first film since he faced accusations of sexual abuse (allegations he has denied), “Melania” outperformed expectations out of the gate but has far to go before it becomes profitable: Amazon’s MGM Studios paid $40 million to license the film and another $35 million to promote it.
“We’re very encouraged by the strong start and positive audience response, with early box office for ‘Melania’ exceeding our expectation,” said Kevin Wilson, Amazon MGM Studios’ head of domestic theatrical distribution.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter and producer for MS NOW. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
The Dictatorship
British prime minister says Prince Andrew should testify to Congress over Epstein ties
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the disgraced British royal formerly known as Prince Andrew, to testify before the U.S. Congress over his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“Firstly, I have always approached this question with the victims of Epstein in mind. Epstein’s victims have to be the first priority. As for whether there should be an apology, that’s a matter for Andrew,” Starmer told press on Saturday during an official visit to Tokyo, Japan.
“But yes, in terms of testifying, I have always said anybody who has got information should be prepared to share that information in whatever form they are asked to do that. You can’t be victim-centered if you’re not prepared to do that.”
The statement comes after the Justice Department on Friday released more than 3 million pages of documents related to its investigation into Epstein as part of its mandate to fulfill the requirements of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Among the documents are photographs that show a barefoot Mountbatten-Windsor kneeling over and touching the stomach and waist of an unidentified female figure whose face has been redacted.
Also among the newly released documents, the Guardian identified email exchanges between him and Epstein dated 2010. In them, Epstein tells Mountbatten-Windsor, “I have a friend who I think you might enjoy having dinner with” and refers to a 26-year-old Russian woman. Andrew replied that he would be “delighted to see her” and told Epstein to give her his contact information.
Mountbatten-Windsor has been unable to distance himself from the scandal over his friendship with Epstein, the American financier who ran a sex-trafficking ring.
Amid ongoing revelations about his history with Epstein, Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal titles last year by his older brother, King Charles III. Andrew was also evicted from his home at Royal Lodge, a 30-room mansion located on the grounds of Windsor Castle.
Virginia Giuffreone of Epstein’s victims, sued Mountbatten-Windsor in 2021, claiming she was forced to have sex with him. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount in 2022with no admission of wrongdoing. Giuffre died by suicide last April. Mountbatten-Windsor has repeatedly denied the allegations against him. In a now-famous BBC Newsnight interviewhe claimed he was at a PizzaExpress in Woking with his daughter, Princess Beatrice, at the time of the alleged assault.
MS NOW is reviewing the documents released by the Justice Department in collaboration with journalists from NBC, AP, CNBC and CBS. Journalists from each newsroom worked together to examine the documents and share information about what is in them. Each outlet is responsible for its own independent news coverage of the documents.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter and producer for MS NOW. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
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