India Pakistan - Diplomatic tensions

 India and Pakistan escalate diplomatic tensions after deadly Kashmir attack

April 24, 2025  The Washington Post

By Victoria Bisset

India and Pakistan revoked visas for each other’s citizens Thursday as diplomatic tensions escalated two days after a deadly shooting attack on a mountain town in India and Pakistan escalate diplomatic tensions after deadly Kashmir attack

Pakistan said it was suspending trade and closing its airspace to Indian airlines, while India suspended a water-sharing treaty, after Tuesday’s attack in Kashmir.

An Indian paramilitary soldier stands guard Thursday on the bank of Dal Lake in Indian-administered Kashmir after an attack by gunmen on civilians in the region two days earlier. (Yawar Nazir/Getty Images)

India and Pakistan revoked visas for each other’s citizens Thursday as diplomatic tensions escalated two days after a deadly shooting attack on a mountain town in Indian-administered Kashmir killed at least 26 people.

Pakistan announced it was suspending trade with India and closing its airspace to all Indian-owned or -operated airlines, while India’s Foreign Ministry said that all Pakistani nationals were to leave the country before their visas expired in the next few days. On Wednesday, India had closed the main land border between the two countries and suspended a key water-sharing treaty — something Pakistani officials described as “an act of water warfare.”

Tuesday’s attack on tourists in a scenic mountainous valley in the Kashmir region, a Muslim-majority enclave, was the deadliest attack against civilians in the region in more than a decade. The attack outside the town of Pahalgam, which coincided with Vice President JD Vance’s visit to India, threatens the fragile 2021 ceasefire between India and Pakistan that ended fighting at the de facto border between Indian- and Pakistani-held Kashmir.

The nuclear-armed neighbors both claim Kashmir and administer separate parts of it; India has long accused Pakistan of supporting militants in the area it administers.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday vowed to pursue the perpetrators of the attack “to the ends of the earth,” without identifying them or naming Pakistan. India’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the move to revoke all existing visas to Pakistani nationals came “in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack” and also recommended that Indian nationals currently in Pakistan “return to India at the earliest.”

Pakistan has condemned the attack and denied involvement. At a news conference Tuesday, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar accused India of a “blame game” without proof. The country’s National Security Committee described India’s response as “unilateral, unjust, politically motivated, extremely irresponsible and devoid of legal merit.”

India and Pakistan have fought three wars over the disputed territory, and armed insurgents in Kashmir have spent decades fighting against Indian control. Thousands of civilians have been killed in the violence or caught in the crosshairs of the dispute.

In 2019, the two countries came to the brink of war after a Pakistan-based militant group claimed responsibility for a massive suicide bombing targeting paramilitary forces in Indian-controlled Kashmir — prompting India, and then Pakistan, to launch cross-border airstrikes.

Later the same year, India revoked the semiautonomous status of Indian-administered Kashmir and imposed sweeping security measures. As The Washington Post has reported, Kashmiris deemed too vocal or too close to separatists have since been fired, jailed or warned to stay silent.

Shaiq Hussain and Haq Nawaz Khan contributed to this report.

Kashmir reels after deadliest attack in a decade

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Suspected militants opened fire on a tourist destination on April 22 in Indian-administered Kashmir. (Video: The Washington Post)

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday vowed to pursue the perpetrators of the attack “to the ends of the earth,” without identifying them or naming Pakistan. India’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the move to revoke all existing visas to Pakistani nationals came “in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack” and also recommended that Indian nationals currently in Pakistan “return to India at the earliest.”Following

Pakistan has condemned the attack and denied involvement. At a news conference Tuesday, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar accused India of a “blame game” without proof. The country’s National Security Committee described India’s response as “unilateral, unjust, politically motivated, extremely irresponsible and devoid of legal merit.🔺

India shouldn’t weaponize water

India shouldn’t weaponize water in fight with Pakistan

India’s Indus Waters Treaty suspension for Pakistan’s unproven role in Kashmir attack sets a troubling and dangerous precedent

by Muktadir Rashid Asia Times April 24, 2025

India has put an Indus River treaty with Pakistan in 'abeyance' after an attack in Kashmir. Image: X Screenshot

South Asia has seen its fair share of geopolitical flashpoints, but New Delhi’s latest move may have ushered in a perilous new phase of regional brinkmanship.

On Wednesday (April 23), just a day after a deadly terrorist attack claimed 26 lives in the Indian-administered region of Kashmir, India unilaterally suspended the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) with Pakistan, a cornerstone of bilateral cooperation for over six decades.

The decision came alongside the closure of a key border crossing, the revocation of regional visa privileges for Pakistani nationals and the downgrading of diplomatic ties. What began as a tragedy at Kashmir’s Pahalgam hill station is rapidly snowballing into a geopolitical crisis — with water, not weapons, now at the center.

The militant group claiming responsibility, Kashmir Resistance, is an unfamiliar name in a region crowded with acronyms and ambiguity.

Yet, without presenting concrete evidence of external involvement, India has taken a series of retaliatory measures that target Pakistan’s economic arteries and, more alarmingly, its water lifeline.

In Islamabad, fears of escalation are already growing, according to media reports. Political insiders and national security officials worry India might again consider punitive military action — reminiscent of the Pulwama-Balakot episode in 2019, when 40 Indian paramilitary personnel were killed in a suicide attack and India responded with cross-border airstrikes.

Pakistan then retaliated with its own sorties, and for a brief, chilling moment, the region teetered on the edge of full-scale war between two nuclear powers.

In response to the Pahalgam incident, Pakistan’s government convened an emergency meeting of its National Security Committee on April 24, chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and attended by top military and civilian brass.

Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar appeared on television to denounce India’s moves as “premature and provocative,” noting that no proof of Pakistani complicity in the attack has been disclosed.

The real powder keg, however, is the Indus Waters Treaty itself.

Brokered by the World Bank in 1960, the treaty has been a rare, resilient bridge between two nuclear-armed rivals. It governs the distribution of water from the Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab rivers — a system that provides nearly 80% of Pakistan’s freshwater supply.

The Indus Waters Treaty, however, is no ordinary bilateral agreement. It cannot be because it’s an instrument of international law. A strong case can be made by Pakistan that it’s in the global interest to uphold agreements reached through painstaking diplomacy.

This isn’t a diplomatic technicality; it is existential. All four of Pakistan’s provinces depend overwhelmingly on the Indus system. With limited alternative sources– most notably a handful of rivers from Afghanistan–Pakistan’s vulnerability is daily, agricultural and absolute.

The escalation is deeply troubling, not only for Pakistan but for the broader region. Water, more than any other resource, lays bare the imbalance of power between upstream and downstream states in South Asia.

India’s move to “hold the treaty in abeyance”– a legal gray zone with no real precedent – sets a disturbing template. It weaponizes a shared resource in a moment of grief and outrage, undermining both international law and regional norms.

New Delhi, for its part, has not been subtle in its long-standing dissatisfaction with the treaty. Last year, it formally issued a notice to Islamabad seeking a renegotiation of the terms — a move Pakistan promptly rejected.

This week’s unilateral “abeyance” appears to be an escalation of that frustration, if not an outright attempt to pressure Pakistan into submission. But beyond the legal posturing lies a darker calculus: economic attrition.

Analysts believe India’s broader intent is to turn the screws on Pakistan’s already fragile economy, particularly its agriculture, which remains overwhelmingly dependent on the Indus River system.

In practical terms, withholding water would require massive infrastructure on a scale that’s not currently available. Even if such projects were launched tomorrow, it would take decades and billions to realize.

Still, symbolism can be powerful. In South Asia, where memories are long and tempers short, even symbolic moves can provoke real consequences.

And for relatively smaller South Asian nations like Bangladesh and Nepal, it raises unsettling questions: If India can suspend a World Bank-backed water treaty with Pakistan overnight, what guarantees exist for others in the region?

What is now urgently needed is a collective voice from South Asia’s quieter corners – Dhaka, Colombo, Kathmandu – to remind New Delhi and Islamabad of their responsibilities to the wider South Asian region.

The subcontinent cannot afford for rivers to become instruments of revenge, nor diplomacy a casualty of fractured politics.🔺

Muktadir Rashid is the executive editor of the Dhaka-based news portal Bangla Outlook

India and Pakistan near strategic standoff

India and Pakistan near strategic standoff after Pahalgam attack in Kashmir

By Abid Hussain AJ 24 Apr 2025

Tensions have escalated between the two nuclear powers following Tuesday’s attack on tourists by separatists in Indian-administered Kashmir.

In a communique issued following a meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC), Pakistan’s top civil-military decision-making body, Pakistan has warned India that any disruption of its water supply would be considered “an act of war”, adding that it was prepared to respond, “with full force across the complete spectrum of national power”.

The NSC meeting, which took place on Thursday in Islamabad, was led by Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif, alongside other government officials and chiefs of its military forces.

The NSC statement mirrored actions announced by India on Wednesday, and included the closure of the Wagah Border Post with “immediate effect”, the suspension and cancellation of SAARC visas for Indian nationals (excluding Sikh pilgrims), the designation of Indian defence advisors as personae non grata in Pakistan, a reduction in the staff of the Indian High Commission, the closure of Pakistani airspace to Indian airlines, and the suspension of all trade with India.

The moves follow India’s response to Tuesday’s attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, which resulted in the deaths of at least 26 people.

Following a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, chaired by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian government announced a series of measures, including the suspension of its part in the 65-year-old Indus Waters Treaty, a pact that allows both countries to irrigate their agricultural lands.

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan threatened to suspend its participation in all bilateral agreements with India, including the 1972 Simla Agreement, on Thursday in a retaliatory move after India said it would suspend its own participation in the Indus Water Treaty and close the land border the day before.

The Simla Agreement was a peace accord signed by the two countries a few months after Bangladesh became independent from Pakistan.

In a media conference, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri also announced the closure of the border with Pakistan, slashed the number of Indian diplomatic staff in Pakistan, ordered Pakistani citizens under the SAARC scheme to leave the country within 48 hours, and expelled Pakistani military attaches posted in India. This response has been soundly interpreted as India blaming Pakistan for the attack in Kashmir.

The Himalayan territory of Kashmir has been a flashpoint between the two countries since they gained independence from British rule in 1947, with each country controlling parts of Kashmir but claiming it in full. Since independence, the nuclear-armed neighbours have fought four wars, three of them over Kashmir.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, who also serves as deputy prime minister, called the Indian steps “immature and hasty” in a television interview on Wednesday night, .

“India has not given any evidence [of Pakistani involvement in the attack].” They have not shown any maturity in their response. This is not a serious approach. They started creating hype immediately after the incident,” said Dar, who also serves as deputy prime minister.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif also rejected India’s implication of Pakistani involvement in the attack.

“India’s allegation against Pakistan for the Pahalgam incident is inappropriate. There should be no ambiguity that we strongly condemn terrorism,” Asif said.

What is the Indus Waters Treaty?

Signed in 1960, the origins of the IWT trace back to August 1947, when British colonial rule over the Indian subcontinent ended and India and Pakistan became two separate sovereign states. India is the upper riparian (located upstream) while Pakistan is the lower riparian, which means India has control over how the river flows.

Because both countries rely on the water from the Indus basin’s six rivers for irrigation and agriculture, they signed an agreement called the Standstill Agreement to continue allowing the flow of water across the border. When the Standstill Agreement expired in 1948, India stopped the water flow towards Pakistan from its canals, prompting an urgent need for negotiations on water sharing.

Following nine years of negotiations mediated by the World Bank, former Pakistani President Ayub Khan and former Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru signed the IWT [PDF] in September 1960. The treaty gives India access to the waters of the three eastern rivers: the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej.

Pakistan, in turn, gets the waters of the three western rivers: the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab.

India can use the western rivers to generate hydroelectric power and for some limited agriculture, but cannot build infrastructure that restricts the flow of water from those rivers into Pakistan or redirects that water.

What would the suspension of this treaty mean for Pakistan?

It represents a threat from India that it could, if and when it chooses to, restrict the flow of water from the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab into Pakistan.

It does not mean that India plans to limit that flow immediately.

Even if it wanted to, it is unlikely that India could immediately stop the flow of water even though it has suspended its participation from the treaty.

This is because India has upstream reservoirs constructed on the western rivers, but their storage capacity cannot hold enough volumes of water to hold back water entirely from Pakistan. It is also high-flow season when ice from glaciers melts between May and September, keeping water levels high.

“The western rivers allocated to Pakistan carry very high flows, especially between May and September. India does not currently have the infrastructure in place to store or divert those flows at scale,” Hassaan F Khan, assistant professor of urban and environmental policy and environmental studies at Tufts University in the United States, told Al Jazeera.

However, if India were to try to stop – or cut – the water flow, Pakistan might feel the effects in seasons when water levels are lower. Pakistan relies heavily on the water from the western rivers for its agriculture and energy. Pakistan does not have alternative sources of water.

Pakistan has a largely agrarian economy, with agriculture contributing 24 percent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 37.4 percent to employment, according to Pakistan’s most recent economic survey published in 2024. The country’s statistics bureau says that the majority of the population is directly or indirectly dependent on the agriculture sector. According to the World Bank, the country’s current population is about 247.5 million.

Does India have the power to suspend this treaty?

While India has declared abeyance from the treaty, legal experts say that it cannot unilaterally suspend the treaty.

“India has used the word abeyance and there is no such provision to ‘hold it in abeyance’ in the treaty,” Ahmer Bilal Soofi, a Pakistani lawyer, told Al Jazeera. The treaty can only be modified by mutual agreement between the parties.

“It also violates customary international laws relating to upper and lower riparian where the upper riparian cannot stop the water promise for lower riparian,” Soofi said.

Anuttama Banerji, a political analyst based in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera that the treaty might continue, but not in its present form. “Instead, it will be up for ‘revision’, ‘review’ and ‘modification’ – all three meaning different things – considering newer challenges such as groundwater depletion and climate change were not catered for in the original treaty,” Banerji said.

“In principle, a unilateral suspension of a bilateral treaty can be challenged as a breach of international law,” Khan, the Tufts University assistant professor, told Al Jazeera.

However, the enforcement of this is complicated, Khan added. “The Indus Waters Treaty is a bilateral agreement without a designated enforcement body. While the World Bank has a role in appointing neutral experts and arbitrators, it is not an enforcement authority.”

Khan explained that if Pakistan wanted to pursue legal recourse, it would likely be through international forums such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ). “In practice, the main costs for India would be reputational and strategic: undermining its image as a rules-based actor, especially given its own status as a downstream riparian on other transboundary rivers.”

Khan said that the broader strategic goal of the IWT suspension seems to be a renegotiation of the treaty. “India has been signalling its desire to revise or renegotiate the treaty for some time,” he said, explaining that India had asked to renegotiate the treaty in January 2023 and again in September 2024, citing climate change and implementation challenges. Pakistan has so far refused.

“The recent announcement appears to be an attempt to apply pressure and force a renegotiation on terms more favourable to India. Whether this strategy succeeds remains to be seen, but it marks a significant departure from six decades of treaty stability.”

What other steps is India taking in response to the attack in Kashmir?

Besides the abeyance of the IWT, Mirsi announced other steps, 

Including:

• The main land border crossing between the two countries, the Integrated Check Post Attari, or the Attari-Wagah crossing, will be closed with immediate effect and those who have crossed over with “valid endorsements” have to return through the route before May 1.
• Any SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES) visas granted to Pakistanis have been cancelled and any Pakistani currently visiting India on the SVES visa has to leave within 48 hours of the statement issued on Wednesday.
• The military, naval and air advisers in the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi are considered personae non gratae and have a week to leave India, while Indian military, naval and air advisers will be pulled back from the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. To be persona non grata in a country means to be unwelcome.
• Five support staff members will also be pulled from each High Commission.
• The staffing for each High Commission will be reduced from 55 members to 30 through further reductions by May 1.

Pakistan announces countermeasures against India

By Xinhua

Published: Apr 25, 2025

    

India's move targeting Pakistan following a shooting incident in the Indian-controlled Kashmir was "highly irresponsible and legally unfounded," and Pakistan will adopt a series of countermeasures against India, the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement on Thursday.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chaired a high-level meeting of the National Security Committee on Thursday, the statement said. The committee expressed concern over the loss of tourists' lives in the incident, and Pakistan unequivocally condemns all kinds of terrorism.

In the absence of any credible investigation and verifiable evidence, India's attempts to link the attack with Pakistan are "reckless, irrational and illogical," it said.

In response, Pakistan will close down the Wagah Border Post, suspend certain visa facilities for Indian nationals, declare the Indian Defence, Naval and Air Advisors in Islamabad persona non grata, close Pakistan's airspace for all Indian airlines, and suspend all trade activities with India, the statement said.

Indian media said that at least 25 people were killed and several others wounded on Tuesday after unknown gunmen fired at them in the Indian-controlled Kashmir.

India has accused Pakistan of involvement in the attack.

On Wednesday, the Indian government announced several measures against Pakistan, including the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, border closure, and the expulsion of Pakistani personnel.

India's Ministry of External Affairs announced on Thursday that it would suspend all categories of visas for Pakistani nationals starting immediately, and advised Indian citizens against traveling to Pakistan, according to Indian media.

Source: Media, With  ENB Addition 

India downgrades ties with Pakistan

Makkah Region Deputy Governor Prince Saud bin Mishal bin Abdulaziz accompanies India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he cuts his two-day trip short to Saudi Arabia, following a suspected militant attack near south Kashmir's Pahalgam, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, April 22, 2025. Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS

India downgrades ties with Pakistan after attack on Kashmir tourists kills 26

By Fayaz Bukhari, Sakshi Dayal and YP Rajesh April 23, 2025

• Summary

• India, Pakistan ties deteriorate further after New Delhi announcement
• India suspends key water sharing treaty, closes only land border crossing
• India cancels special visas, further downgrades diplomatic missions
• Pakistan PM calls meeting Thursday to discuss response
• Kashmir attack worst on civilians in India since 2008 Mumbai shootings

SRINAGAR/NEW DELHI, April 23 (Reuters) - India announced a raft of measures to downgrade its ties with Pakistan on Wednesday, a day after suspected militants killed 26 men at a tourist destination in Kashmir in the worst attack on civilians in the country in nearly two decades.

Diplomatic ties between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours were weak even before the latest measures were announced as Pakistan had expelled India's envoy and not posted its own ambassador in New Delhi after India revoked the special status of Kashmir in 2019.

Pakistan had also halted its main train service to India and banned Indian films, seeking to exert diplomatic pressure.

Tuesday's attack is seen as a setback to what Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have projected as a major achievement in revoking the semi-autonomous status Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed and bringing peace and development to the long-troubled Muslim-majority region.

On Wednesday, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told a media briefing that the cross-border involvement in the Kashmir attack was underscored at a special security cabinet meeting, prompting it to act against Pakistan.

He said New Delhi would immediately suspend the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty "until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism."

The treaty, mediated by the World Bank, split the Indus River and its tributaries between the neighbours and regulated the sharing of water. It had so far withstood even wars between the neighbours.

Pakistan is heavily dependent on water flowing downstream from this river system from Indian Kashmir for its hydropower and irrigation needs. Suspending the treaty would allow India to deny Pakistan its share of the waters.

India also closed the only open land border crossing point between the two countries and said that those who have crossed into India can return through the point before May 1.

With no direct flights operating between the two countries, the move severs all transport links between them.

Pakistani nationals will not be permitted to travel to India under special South Asian visas, all such existing visas were cancelled and Pakistanis in India under such visas had 48 hours to leave, Misri said.

All defence advisors in the Pakistani mission in New Delhi were declared persona non grata and given a week to leave. India will pull out its own defence advisors in Pakistan and also reduce staff size at its mission in Islamabad to 30 from 55, Misri said.

"The CCS reviewed the overall security situation and directed all forces to maintain high vigil," Misri, the most senior diplomat in the foreign ministry, said referring to the security cabinet.

"It resolved that the perpetrators of the attack will be brought to justice and their sponsors held to account...India will be unrelenting in the pursuit of those who have committed acts of terror, or conspired to make them possible," he said.

There was no immediate response to the Indian announcement from Pakistan's Foreign Office.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called a meeting of the National Security Committee on Thursday morning to respond to the Indian government’s statement, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar posted on X.

Chart shows the number of tourists visiting Kashmir region annually between 2015 and 2024. There was as surge in the footfall in the past three years, peaking at 3.5 million in 2024.

TOURIST BOOM

, opens new tabIndia's response came a day after the attack in the Baisaran Valley in the Pahalgam area of the scenic, Himalayan federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

The region has been at the heart of India-Pakistan animosity for decades and the site of multiple wars, insurgency and diplomatic standoffs.

The dead included 25 Indians and one Nepalese national and at least 17 people were also injured in the shooting that took place on Tuesday.

It was the worst attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai shootings, and shattered the relative calm in Kashmir, where tourism has boomed as an anti-India insurgency, opens new tab has waned in recent years.

A little-known militant group, the "Kashmir Resistance," claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media message. It expressed discontent that more than 85,000 "outsiders" had been settled in the region, spurring a "demographic change".

Indian security agencies say Kashmir Resistance, also known as The Resistance Front, is a front for Pakistan-based militant organisations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen.

Pakistan denies accusations that it supports militant violence in Kashmir and says it only provides moral, political and diplomatic support to the insurgency there.

"We are concerned at the loss of tourists’ lives," Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan said in a statement earlier on Wednesday. "We extend our condolences to the near ones of the deceased and wish the injured a speedy recovery."

Chart shows the number of civilians and security forces killed in the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, India, from 2000 to 2024.

SETBACK TO MODI

In Kashmir, security forces rushed to the Pahalgam area and began combing the forests there in search of the attackers.

Police also released sketches of three of the four suspected attackers, who were dressed in traditional long shirts and loose trousers and one of them was wearing a bodycam, one security source said.

There were about 1,000 tourists and about 300 local service providers and workers in the valley when the attack took place, he said.

On Wednesday, the federal territory shut down in protest against the attack on tourists, whose rising numbers have helped the local economy.

Protesters turned out in several locations shouting slogans such as "Stop killing innocents", "Tourists are our lives", "It is an attack on us."

"I want to say to the people of the country that we are ashamed, Kashmir is ashamed," former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said. "We are standing with you in this time of crisis."

Airlines were operating extra flights through Wednesday from Srinagar, the summer capital of the territory, as visitors were rushing out of the region, officials said.

Militant violence has afflicted Kashmir, claimed in full but ruled in part by both Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan, since the anti-Indian insurgency began in 1989. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, although violence has tapered off in recent years.

Reporting by Fayaz Bukhari; Additional reporting by YP Rajesh, Sakshi Dayal, Nigam Prusty and Surbhi Misra in New Delhi, Sudipto Ganguly and Shilpa Jamkhandikar in Mumbai, and Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad; Writing by YP Rajesh; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Raju Gopalakrishnan, Sharon Singleton, Aidan Lewis and Diane Craft

Exclusive: US-China fentanyl talks

U.S. President Donald Trump displays a presidential public health emergency declaration on the nation's opioid crisis in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., October 26, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

Exclusive: US-China fentanyl talks hang by thread amid trade war

By Michael Martina - Reuters-April 23, 2025

Summary

• Counter narcotics talks continue despite trade tensions
• Trump wants China to punish sellers of fentanyl precursors
• China demands end to ‘unjustified’ tariffs for cooperation
• Trump team says Chinese offers so far are in ‘bad faith’

WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - Talks continue between the U.S. and China on tackling the fentanyl epidemic amid the bitter trade war between the world’s two largest economies, four U.S. officials familiar with the discussions told Reuters, even as American negotiators claim the Chinese are failing to negotiate in good faith.

The two sides are exchanging intelligence about traffickers and communicate frequently. But Beijing’s proposals to help resolve the crisis thus far are inadequate, the people said, testing the patience of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has pursued a more confrontational stance with China on drugs than did his predecessor Joe Biden.

Washington says Chinese chemical manufacturers and exporters provide the majority of precursor chemicals used by drug cartels to produce synthetic opioids, the cause of nearly 450,000 U.S. overdose deaths. China has long defended its tough drug laws and record of cracking down on smugglers, and says America must get a handle on its own addiction woes.

“The abuse of fentanyl in the United States is a problem that must be confronted and resolved by the United States itself,” Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, told Reuters.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has engaged in direct talks with Chinese counterparts, mostly between the top staff at the Chinese embassy in Washington and the U.S. National Security Council, the four U.S. officials said. Staff at the U.S. embassy in Beijing have also been involved.

Trump negotiators have conveyed his desire for swift action by Chinese authorities to prosecute and convict China-based producers and sellers of precursors feeding the fentanyl trade, the U.S. officials said. China, in turn, has offered to regulate additional fentanyl precursor chemicals beyond those it already controls, a proposal the Americans say falls well short of what they’re looking for.

"Talk is cheap," one of the U.S. officials said, adding the two sides were largely "at an impasse."

In response to questions from Reuters about the counternarcotics talks, an administration official said the U.S. might consider additional punitive measures to compel China to take meaningful action on fentanyl precursors, including sanctions on Chinese banks. “Nothing is off the table,” the person said.

Reuters reporters last year purchased 6.6 kilos of precursors and pill-making equipment online from Chinese sellers who openly market to the illegal drugs trade as part of a multi-part investigation into fentanyl's secretive global supply chain. As part of that series, “Fentanyl Express,” reporters detailed U.S.-China counternarcotics talks held during the Biden administration, negotiations that failed to wrest major concessions from Beijing, and previewed a more antagonistic approach planned by the second Trump administration.

Among Trump’s first moves was imposing tariffs now totaling 20% on Chinese imports over Beijing’s alleged failure to stem the flow of fentanyl precursors to drug cartels. Other rounds of tariffs in the president’s trade war have slapped baseline duties of 145% or higher on many Chinese goods, levels China has cautioned would undermine talks on counternarcotics.

"If (the U.S.) truly wants to address the fentanyl problem, it needs to revoke the unjustified tariffs, engage in equal consultation with China, and seek mutually beneficial cooperation," said Liu, the Chinese embassy spokesman.

Beijing in the past has suspended dialogue on drugs when angered by Washington, doing so after a 2022 visit to Taiwan by then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Biden got those talks back on track, and negotiations have continued under Trump.

'BAD FAITH'

Since returning to the White House, Trump has named the opioid crisis as one of his top foreign policy priorities. He has designated drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Some Canadian and Mexican goods have also been slapped with so-called fentanyl tariffs. But Trump has reserved particular vitriol for China, accusing Beijing of "actively sustaining and expanding the business of poisoning our citizens, opens new tab."

Biden’s measured approach in engaging Beijing yielded some small wins but no dramatic breakthrough, something Trump’s team views as a failure. They see tariffs as a tool for compelling Chinese cooperation, despite China’s warnings to the contrary.

Following Trump’s initial tariffs over fentanyl, China offered to schedule two precursor chemicals: 4-Piperidone and 1-boc-4-piperidone.

That concession was easy for Beijing to make, the U.S. officials said, because China was already obligated to do so.

That’s because those chemicals were placed under international control in 2024 by the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs. China is a member of that commission, and thus bound to regulate those precursors. Work on scheduling them is underway, according to a March report by the Chinese government on its fentanyl-control efforts.

Trump negotiators were underwhelmed. The Chinese offering “to do something that they've already agreed to, it's essentially negotiating in bad faith," a second U.S. official said.

Since Trump escalated the tariffs in recent weeks, Beijing has made additional proposals to schedule several more precursors, the U.S. officials said, an offer the Americans still deem insufficient.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement after Reuters published this article that it was "obvious to everyone who has goodwill and who has ill intentions," and that the U.S. approach will “seriously undermine China-U.S. counternarcotics dialogue and cooperation.”

During Trump’s first term, China did take some steps to constrict the synthetic opioid pipeline. At the time, most fentanyl sold on U.S. streets was made in China. In 2019, Beijing placed fentanyl and its analogs under national control, effectively ending illicit exports of the finished product. But Chinese chemical companies quickly pivoted to supplying ingredients to the Mexican cartels that took over production, U.S. authorities say.

What the Trump team wants now is for China to crack down on Chinese chemical manufacturers and sellers catering to that illicit trade. Many market their wares openly online. Beijing has failed to make such prosecutions a priority, one of the U.S. officials said, despite evidence and leads supplied by the American side.

“Start putting big, important people behind bars as a signal to the whole industry or black market," the first official said. "We just haven't seen that."

The Biden administration, too, pressed China to require its chemical sector to vet customers and better monitor where their exports are going.

But China has resisted out of concern that too much regulation would hamper the growth of its powerful chemical industry. Many chemicals used to make synthetic opioids also have legitimate uses. Tsang Wai-hung, an official with China's National Narcotics Control Commission, last year told Reuters that it’s the responsibility of importing countries – not Chinese chemical companies – to investigate sketchy buyers suspected of purchasing legal precursors to manufacture fentanyl.

Tsang directed questions to China’s Ministry of Public Security, which oversees the National Narcotics Control Commission. The ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

China last year said it had targeted internet advertising related to fentanyl and its precursors, shuttering more than a dozen online platforms and hundreds of stores.

But recent Reuters interviews with more than 50 fentanyl users in Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, and Columbus, Ohio, showed the drug remains plentiful and cheap.

A third U.S. official warned that Trump could resort to more tariffs if he felt that China was dragging its feet.

Liu, the Chinese embassy spokesman, said his country won’t sit idly by.

“China never accepts power politics or hegemony,” Liu said. “If the United States insists on applying pressure and even goes down the path of extortion, China will surely take resolute countermeasures.”🔺

Reporting by Michael Martina in Washington; Additional reporting by Antoni Slodkowski in Beijing; Editing by Marla Dickerson