08 Sep US Seizes Largest Shipment of Chinese Chemicals for Meth and Fentanyl Production
By,
Leonardo Morales, Senior Fellow, MSI²
These chemicals are shipped from China to Mexico as their final destination and “were allegedly used to manufacture 189,000 kilos of methamphetamine, with a street value of $569 million.”
In the history of the United States, no government has so vigorously and frontally combated the drug trade and the organized crime gangs responsible for producing and distributing them as the Trump administration.
During his election campaign, Trump promised to make the United States a much safer country.
During his first term, he took important steps, such as those he has taken now, to close the border, combat drug trafficking, and declare open war on gangs and crime in general. However, his efforts fell short of his intended objectives due to the relentless political attacks from Democratic congressmen and activists who twice attempted to remove him from office, amid an unprecedented and relentless battle against his administration.
This time, his second term, the White House resident—through Republican control of both chambers of Congress and with his four years of experience in the White House—has focused on his core areas of work, including national security, drugs, and crime, three closely linked issues.
The Republican leader signed an executive order declaring drug trafficking gangs or cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), among which he recently included the Cartel of the Suns.
Washington not only accuses Venezuelan narco-dictator Nicolás Maduro and other senior officials of that regime of smuggling tons of drugs into the US, but also China as the main supplier of chemical substances, and Mexico, Canada, and Central America as major processing and distribution centers.
Unprecedented Fight Against Drug Trafficking
In the first half of August 2025, Trump—as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army—ordered the US Navy, Air Force, intelligence agencies, and the Department of Homeland Security to work together and directly and precisely confront the trafficking of drugs and substances used in the manufacture of tons of synthetic narcotics, which are now marketed at huge profits, far above traditional drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, among others.
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid analgesic also illegally processed and mixed with other substances, is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, but in its illegal form, it is 10 times stronger than heroin and much cheaper, due to different mixtures of chemical components, which have made it the drug of choice among addicts.
On Wednesday, September 3, the White House revealed the largest seizure in the United States of precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamines, especially fentanyl, which has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in the country in the last five years.
This involves the confiscation of no less than 13,000 barrels containing approximately 300,000 kg of chemicals from China and destined for the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, according to the first report from federal authorities.
The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia (Washington, DC), Jeanine Pirro, traveled to Texas to make the announcement along with the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Todd Lyons.
Federal authorities announced the seizure of two shipments of chemical substances, transported on two different vessels on the high seas and sent to the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. That is, from China to Mexico.
“The primary port of discharge was Shanghai, China, and the port of arrival was Mexico,” said Pirro from a warehouse in Pasadena, southeast of Houston, Texas, where the enormous shipment is in federal custody.
The operation took place a week before the public announcement and was the result of a collaborative effort between multiple federal agencies, the Navy, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
These are ingredients such as benzyl alcohol and N-methylformamide “that would have been used to manufacture 189,000 kilos of methamphetamine, whose street value in a city like Houston would amount to $569 million.”
Promise Turned into Action
Pirro explained that this action was made possible after President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared the Sinaloa Cartel a foreign terrorist organization.
According to Lyons, head of ICE, by considering the Sinaloa Cartel a terrorist organization, federal authorities now have greater powers, such as “the ability to track” the ingredients even before they reach the country.
Prosecutor Pirro stated that “every day, tons of chemicals used to create synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines and especially fentanyl are shipped from China to Mexico in an undeclared war by China against the United States and its citizens.”
This Tuesday, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Guangzhou Tengyue, a chemical company operating in China and dedicated to the manufacture and sale of synthetic opioids to Americans.
In addition, it sanctioned Huang Xiaojun and Huang Zhanpeng, representatives of Guangzhou Tengyue, who were directly involved in coordinating shipments of these supplies to the United States.
Xiaojun and Zhanpeng have also been criminally charged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
According to authorities, opioid overdoses remain the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 18 and 45, and companies in China are the main source of precursor chemicals for fentanyl and other illicit opioids entering the United States.
The news of the seizure comes less than 48 hours after another important announcement.
In a radical shift in policies to combat drug trafficking, President Trump reported the deadly U.S. attack on a drug-carrying vessel carrying 11 individuals, who federal authorities say were members of the so-called Venezuelan criminal group Tren de Aragua. The vessel left the coast of Venezuela.
New Strategies
Hours later, the U.S. president accused the Maduro regime of sending drug traffickers and drugs to the U.S.
Washington’s shift in strategy in combating drug trafficking, a high-priority issue due to its national security implications, is more than evident. It has shifted from police pursuit to military operations.
The event comes as a warning, along with the President’s forceful message: This should “serve as a warning to anyone who even thinks about bringing drugs into the United States.”
Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that the attack and elimination of the target “demonstrates a change in the rules of engagement.”
“There will no longer be boardings of vessels by the US Coast Guard: There is now an approach much more similar to how the United States eliminates pirates in the Gulf region, or terrorists in the Sahel,” he explained.
The attack on the vessel and the seizure of the chemicals also follow the impressive deployment of US warships in the Caribbean region. According to the White House, the objective is to combat drug trafficking like never before; however, some analysts see it as a preamble to a forced change of the illegitimate totalitarian regime in Venezuela.
The United States alleges that the Venezuelan dictator directs the activities of the Cartel of the Suns and the Tren de Aragua in cocaine trafficking and sustains his regime largely with dirty money, tainted by the blood and deaths of drug offenders. For this reason, the White House doubled the reward to $50 million for his capture and to face drug trafficking charges.
Sources: AFP, Fox News, White House, and reports from the DEA and DHS.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Miami Strategic Intelligence Institute (MSI²).