The bill
Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act of 2025
HR. 747, 119th Congress — read as touching Pharmaceuticals.
Sponsored by
Rep. Barr, Andy [R-KY-6]
ID: B001282
Follow the money
The bill
HR. 747, 119th Congress — read as touching Pharmaceuticals.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
22 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Department of Justice" section, p. 587-589 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
September 2, 2025
📍 Current Status
Next: Both chambers must agree on the same version of the bill.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another brilliant example of Congressional theater, designed to make the masses feel like something is being done about the opioid crisis while actually accomplishing nothing.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act of 2025 is a masterclass in legislative posturing. Its primary objective is to appear tough on China and the opioid epidemic while doing little to address the root causes of either issue. The bill's sponsors want you to believe they're taking bold action, but it's all just a show.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill amends the Fentanyl Sanctions Act to include Chinese entities that produce or traffic fentanyl precursors. It also expands the definition of "foreign opioid trafficker" to include senior Chinese officials who allegedly aid and abet trafficking. But don't be fooled – these changes are largely symbolic, as they rely on the President's discretion to enforce sanctions.
The bill also modifies the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to require periodic evaluations of the effectiveness of economic sanctions related to national emergencies, including those related to international drug trafficking. Because, you know, Congress loves to create more paperwork and bureaucratic hurdles.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects are affected by this bill:
* Chinese entities involved in fentanyl production or trafficking (but only if they're unlucky enough to get caught) * Senior Chinese officials who might be deemed "foreign opioid traffickers" (good luck with that) * The President, who gets to decide whether to enforce sanctions * Congressional committees, which will receive periodic evaluations and reports (yawn)
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It won't significantly impact the flow of fentanyl into the United States or address the underlying causes of addiction. Instead, it will create more red tape, bureaucratic delays, and opportunities for corruption.
The real winners are:
* Lobbyists who pushed for this legislation * Politicians who get to grandstand about being tough on China and opioids * The Chinese government, which will likely just find ways to circumvent the new regulations
In conclusion, HR 747 is a textbook example of legislative malpractice. It's a feel-good bill designed to appease voters while accomplishing nothing meaningful. If you're looking for real solutions to the opioid crisis, keep looking – this isn't it.
Rep. Barr, Andy [R-KY-6]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
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No committee contributions found
This bill has 9 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
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Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 65 nodes and 37 connections (48 secondary connections hidden)
Total contributions: $164,854
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Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 2 harmed.
Section 3 amends the Fentanyl Sanctions Act to include entities that produce or distribute opioid precursors, which could impact pharmaceutical companies involved in such activities.
Section 2 Sense of Congress mentions working with the US Government to identify unregulated chemicals used for precursor production, potentially affecting biotech firms involved in such research
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
AI Analysis:
"The bill directly targets Chinese producers and traffickers of fentanyl precursors, aligning with Project 2025's focus on combating Chinese-sourced opioid threats, securing the border, and restarting the China Initiative, though it lacks explicit border enforcement or RICO provisions."
— 555 — Department of Justice 1. Rigorously prosecute as much interstate drug activity as possible, including simple possession of distributable quantities.46 Recent efforts to create the impression that drug possession crimes are not serious offenses has contributed to the explosion of criminal organization activities in the United States. 2. Aggressively deploy the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO),47 which Congress expressly created to empower the Department of Justice to treat patterns of intrastate- level crimes, such as robbery, extortion, and murder, as federal criminal conduct for criminal organizations and networks. The next Administration can use existing tools while it works with Congress to develop new tools. l Secure the border,48 which is the key entry point for many criminal organizations and their supplies, products, and employees. Mexico— which is arguably functioning as a failed state run by drug cartels—is the main point of transit for illegal drugs produced in Central and South America, fentanyl precursors from the Chinese Communist Party–led People’s Republic of China,49 weapons, human smuggling and trafficking, and other contraband. Mexican drug cartels, including the dominant Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), are the main drivers of fentanyl production and distribution in the United States. The southwestern land border is sufficiently porous that Mexican drug cartels have operational control of large sections of the border, which facilitates easy movement of product and personnel. These cartels are also violent and not afraid to demonstrate force on both sides of the border. Their conduct represents a clear and present danger to the United States and its citizens. In addition to finalizing the southwestern land border wall, the next Administration should take a creative and aggressive approach to tackling these dangerous criminal organizations at the border. This could include use of active-duty military personnel and National Guardsmen to assist in arrest operations along the border—something that has not yet been done. A new and forceful approach to interdiction will have a ripple effect on the operations of these criminal organizations, which currently operate freely without concern for criminal prosecution, and will lay the necessary groundwork for initial prosecutions of these organizations and their leaders. It is critical that the federal government staunch the flow of drugs by preventing the far-too-easy access to the United States that now exists. — 556 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise There can be no serious dispute that the Biden Administration has opened the southwest border to whomever wants to enter and that some of those entrants are smuggling fentanyl into the country. More than 100,000 Americans died in a one-year period from opioid overdoses, and many of them died specifically from having used fentanyl.50 The federal government should treat this problem as aggressively as necessary. Enforcing the customs and immigration laws is a matter of life and death. PURSUING A NATIONAL SECURITY AGENDA AIMED AT EXTERNAL STATE AND NON-STATE ACTORS, NOT U.S. CITIZENS EXERCISING THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS The Department of Justice plays a vital role in protecting our national security, and it must not refrain from engaging in public initiatives that identify our adver- saries and educate the American people about their activities. The DOJ’s China Initiative under President Trump reflected the department’s priority of combating Chinese threats to our national security.51 Because China was accountable for approximately 80 percent of all prosecutions for economic espionage and approximately 60 percent of all thefts of trade secrets, then-At- torney General Jeff Sessions set key goals for the China Initiative that included development of an enforcement strategy concerning researchers in labs and universities who were being coopted into stealing critical U.S. technologies, iden- tification of opportunities to address supply-chain threats more effectively, and education of colleges and universities about potential threats from Chinese influ- ence efforts on campus. In February 2022, the Biden Administration terminated the department’s China Initiative largely out of a concern for poor “optics.”52 While the Biden Administra- tion correctly identified China as America’s “only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it,”53 it folded in the face of political cor- rectness and sent the message that liberal sensitivities outweighed bringing justice to threats from China. The next conservative Administration should therefore: l Restart the China Initiative. l Pursue other programs to educate the American people about the real and dangerous threats to our national security and economic security that are posed by actors across the globe, most notably China and Iran. l Ensure that it is agile enough to devote sufficient resources and attention to other emerging threats that involve federal interests
AI Analysis:
"The bill aligns strongly with Project 2025's trade policy objectives by targeting China's role in the fentanyl supply chain through sanctions, enhanced oversight of chemical shipments, and accountability measures—consistent with the broader strategy of reducing U.S. dependence on Chinese supply chains and holding the CCP accountable for harmful activities."
— 789 — Trade The following policy options were on the drawing board or in discussion as preparations for a potential Trump second term were being made. These options span the spectrum from purely trade-related like increasing tariffs to cutting off Communist China’s access to American financial markets, research institutions, and consumers. The next American President should strongly consider adopting all of them as a package: l Strategically expand tariffs to all Chinese products and increase tariff rates to levels that will block out “Made in China” products, and execute this strategy in a manner and at a pace that will not expose the U.S. to lack of access to essential products like key pharmaceuticals. l Provide significant financial and tax incentives to American companies that are seeking to onshore production from Communist China to U.S. soil. l Stop Communist China’s abuse of the so-called de minimis exemption, which allows it to evade the tariffs for products valued at less than $800. l Prohibit Communist Chinese state-owned enterprises from bidding on U.S. government procurement contracts (for example, contracts for subway and other transportation systems). l Prohibit the use of Communist Chinese–made drones in American airspace. l Ban all Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, which pose significant national security risks and expose American consumers to data and identity theft. l Prohibit all Communist Chinese investment in high-technology industries. l Prohibit U.S. pension funds from investing in Communist Chinese stocks. l Delist any Communist Chinese stocks that do not meet Public Company Accounting Oversight Board standards or, alternatively, close off the Chinese “A shares” stock market to U.S. investment and deregister U.S.- sanctioned Communist Chinese companies. l Prohibit the use of Hong Kong clearinghouses as transit points for American capital investing in the Chinese mainland. l Prohibit the inclusion of Chinese sovereign bonds in U.S. investors’ portfolios. — 790 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Systematically reduce and eventually eliminate any U.S. dependence on Communist Chinese supply chains that may be used to threaten national security such as medicines, silicon chips, rare earth minerals, computer motherboards, flatscreen displays, and military components. l Sanction any companies, including American companies like Apple, that facilitate Communist China’s use of its Great Firewall surveillance and censorship capabilities. l Order the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice to contract with U.S.-owned and U.S.-operated artificial intelligence companies that are capable of detecting, identifying, and disrupting both the domestic groups’ and CCP influencers’ social media operations and funding streams using public information as a rapidly available offensive measure. l Reinvigorate and expand the DHS crackdown on the CCP’s use of e-sellers (including third-party sellers) and the shippers and operators of major warehouses such as Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba to flood U.S. markets with counterfeit and pirated goods. l Compel the closure of all Confucius Institutes in the U.S., which serve as propaganda arms of the CCP. l Significantly reduce or eliminate the issuance of visas to Chinese students or researchers to prevent espionage and information harvesting. l Hold the CCP accountable for the COVID-19 virus, which almost certainly originated as a genetically engineered virus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and do so through the establishment of a presidential commission or select congressional committee that would investigate the origins of the virus; its various costs, both economically and in human life; and the possible means of collecting damages from the CCP, which are likely to rise to the trillions of dollars. If the new U.S. President wishes to defend this country against the serious exis- tential threat posed by Communist China, that President will adopt all of these proposals through the requisite presidential executive orders or memoranda. Effective Trade Policy in the Real World. To conclude this analysis, it is useful to offer brief reflections on a number of key obstacles to implementing the policy initiatives recommended in this chapter. These obstacles include:
AI Analysis:
"The bill directly addresses Project 2025's concern about Communist China's economic aggression by targeting Chinese entities involved in fentanyl trafficking through sanctions and trade-related measures like labeling and know-your-customer requirements, aligning with the goal of countering China's malign economic practices."
— 783 — Trade tariffs.17 A conservative Administration might do well to look at such a tax as part of its trade agenda. CHALLENGE #2: COMMUNIST CHINA’S ECONOMIC AGGRESSION AND QUEST FOR WORLD DOMINATION18 Among all of its bilateral trade relationships, America’s relationship with Com- munist China is the most fraught with difficulty. The problem is not just that the relentlessly mercantilist and protectionist trade policies that China has pursued ever since its accession to the WTO in 2001 have led to chronic, massive, and ever-expanding trade deficits. Communist China’s economic aggression in the traditional trade policy space is further facilitated by equally aggressive industrial policies and technology transfer–forcing policies that are designed to shift the world’s manufacturing and supply chains to Communist Chinese soil. The Chinese Communist Party’s policy goal is to propel the Chinese economy, but its broader goal is to strengthen Communist China’s defense industrial base and associated warfighting capabilities. That China unabashedly seeks to supplant America as the world’s dominant economic and military power is not in dispute. Rather, it is a prominent feature of Communist Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s rhet- oric. Xi has promised that the deed will be done by 2049, the 100-year anniversary of the Communist takeover of the Mainland.19 In light of Communist China’s broader geopolitical and military agenda, the American President who takes office in January 2025 must view the U.S.–China trade relationship and associated policy reforms within the context of the broader existential threat posed by Communist China. The question is whether that next President should seek to decouple economically and financially from Communist China as America’s first best response to China’s unrelenting aggression or con- tinue efforts to negotiate with an authoritarian country and brutal dictatorship with a well-established reputation for failing to abide by any agreements it enters. Institutionalized Aggression. Table 5 depicts more than 50 types of policy aggression institutionalized by the CCP across six different categories of such aggression. Viewed as whole, the extent of Communist China’s aggression is breathtaking. At the trade policy level, Communist China relies heavily on a wide range of mercantilist and protectionist tools to protect its own markets and unfairly exploit foreign markets. These instruments of Communist Chinese trade aggression include high tariffs and nontariff barriers, currency manipulation, a heavy reli- ance on sweatshop labor and pollution havens, the dumping of unfairly subsidized exports, and widespread counterfeiting and piracy: Communist China is the world’s largest source of counterfeit and pirated products. In addition, Communist Chinese enterprises benefit from preferential policies that have burdened world markets with subsidized overcapacity. The resultant glut — 784 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise of Communist Chinese exports in turn depresses world prices and pushes foreign rivals out of the global market—steel is a major example.20 Industrial policy tools that further reinforce Communist China’s mercantilist and protectionist trade policies include numerous direct and indirect subsidies to boost exports and the consolidation of heavily subsidized state-owned enterprises into “national champi- ons” that can compete with foreign companies in both domestic and global markets. Communist China also uses a predatory “debt trap” model of economic develop- ment aid that proffers substantial financing to developing countries in exchange for their willingness to mortgage their natural resources and allow Communist China access to their markets. The practical effect of this debt trap model is to give Com- munist China a competitive edge internationally that stems from its preferential access to relatively lower-cost commodities needed in the manufacturing process. These commodities range from bauxite, copper, and nickel to rarer commodities such as beryllium, titanium, and rare earth minerals. As a complement to this debt trap gambit and to exploit its commanding share of a wide range of critical raw materials that are essential to the global supply chain and production of high-technology and high-value-added products, Com- munist China strategically uses protectionist export restraints, including export quotas and export duties. These export restraints thereby restrict access to raw materials such as rare earth, tungsten, and molybdenum that are essential in the high-technology production space. The result is to drive up world prices and thereby put pressure on American and other foreign downstream producers to move their operations, technologies, and jobs to Communist China. American industries that have been affected by Communist China’s export restraints range from steel, chemicals, and electric cars to wind turbines, lasers, semiconductors, and refrigerants. Technology-Forcing Policies. Table 6, extracted from the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy’s report on Communist China’s economic aggression,21 provides a summary of the various policies the Chinese Communist Party uses to force the transfer of the West’s technologies to Communist Chinese soil. Formally, Communist Chinese industrial policy seeks to promote the “diges- tion, absorption, and re-innovation” of technologies and intellectual property (IP) from around the world.22 As noted in Table 6, this policy is carried out, for example, through state-spon- sored IP theft—coercive and intrusive regulatory gambits to force technology transfer, typically in exchange for limited access to the Chinese market. Commu- nist China’s looting of American technology is further enhanced by “information harvesting” conducted by Communist Chinese nationals who infiltrate U.S. uni- versities, national laboratories, and other centers of innovation. Strategic sectors targeted by Communist Chinese economic espionage have included electronics, telecommunications, robotics, data services, pharmaceuticals, mobile phone
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.