With the White House having confirmed the existence of the Chinese spy base in Cuba, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) recently told "Fox & Friends" that the communists are positioning themselves to do from Cuba what they were unable to do when Donald Trump was in the Oval Office.
Military veteran Ben Varlese recalls that because of economic pressure and other factors from the Trump administration, China once agreed to schedule fentanyl and its derivatives as a controlled substance.
"Tamping down" on export of fentanyl and its precursors was a win for the previous administration in 2019, Varlese says.
According to him, holding the East Asian country accountable may have helped reduce the number of deaths associated with fentanyl poisoning in the United States. But as COVID-19 took attention away from the agreement, he says China took advantage of the distraction and President Biden's disinterested and "weaker administration."
Now, while China denies connection to any illegal fentanyl trafficking with Mexico, Varlese says "they're back in full force, [supplying] nearly everything the Mexican drug cartels need to make fentanyl."
"99% of the fentanyl is coming from precursor drugs from China, and then it's manufactured by two cartels -- the Jallisco and Sinoloa cartels," Rep. David Trone (D-MD) said last year. "They're the ones that are bringing it across the border."
With fentanyl poisonings reaching record levels in the United States, Varlese wonders if there is an actual state sponsorship from China or if the regime is simply "turning a blind eye" to the exportation of fentanyl and its precursors "because they know how much it's hurting America."
He argues that the border crisis, "fueled by Biden's policies," has given China "a strong leverage point." "They're using it as a way to weaken the United States," he says
As for Mexico, which is under the control of cartels, Varlese observes that the president's solution is to "give hugs."
In March, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said, "There is a lot of disintegration of families, there is a lot of individualism, there is a lack of love, of brotherhood, of hugs and embraces" -- a claim that Varlese submits is nothing more than "a silly attempt to ignore any culpability for the problem."
Meanwhile, Chinese nationals are part of the illegal immigrant surge out of Mexico. So while President Obrador promotes hugs, he is allowing Chinese nationals "to smuggle either finished products or precursors into his country and ours," the security expert laments.
In the U.S., Varlese says there are too many examples to name as evidence that the Biden administration and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas have "their blinders on."
They are "failing to protect the country," he concludes.
China's ring-running has come full circle
An anti-communist activist doesn't have a lot of confidence that Joe Biden has, as the president claims, stepped up efforts to thwart the Chinese push to expand its spying operations, or that he's made any progress through diplomacy or other action.
Humberto Fontova, who was born in Cuba and fled its regime in 1961, is concerned that the Chinese are stationed just 90 miles off the Florida coast.
"Knowing that he was vice-president during Obama's opening to Cuba and how they ran rings around Obama during that so-called rapprochement, they've taken the measure of the Biden administration, and they know that they can run rings around them," Fontova submits. "The Chinese know this, and the Cubans know this, and so there's no reason for them not to do it."
At least since 2019, the Chinese have been using a former Soviet base to spy on the many U.S. military installations in southern Florida, including the Southern Command headquarters, the McDill Air Force Base, and others that are used to monitor drug trafficking and basically any kind of mischief that is carried on in the Caribbean.
Though White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said in an MSNBC interview Thursday that they "have been concerned since day one of this administration about China's influence activities around the world," Fontova is not confident that the Biden administration has, as it claims, everything under control.
