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US and China Launch Efforts to Combat Fentanyl Crisis. On January 30, officials from the United States and China met to discuss a joint effort to take action on stemming the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. 'TIME' reports that the meeting comes as a sign of cooperation between the two global powers to manage the ongoing fentanyl crisis. The new counternarcotics working group met for their first two-day meeting, focusing on ingredients for the synthetic opioid that are manufactured in China. In November of 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to resume cooperation on combating drug trafficking in a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in San Francisco. The U.S. is looking for China to increase efforts to curb the export of chemicals that are processed into fentanyl before being smuggled into the U.S. 'TIME' reports that synthetic opioids like fentanyl have emerged as the deadliest killers in the ongoing U.S. drug crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 100,000 deaths were linked to drug overdoses in 2022. Over two-thirds of those overdoses were linked with fentanyl or other similar synthetic opioids. In exchange for cooperation on combating the flow of fentanyl, the U.S. agreed to lift sanctions imposed on China in 2020 over human rights violations against Uyghurs. According to State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, lifting the sanctions was “an appropriate step to take” given what China was willing to do on the trafficking of fentanyl precursors. THIS VIDEO MUST NOT BE EDITED FOR LENGTH TO COMBINE WITH OTHER CONTENT