When General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chief’s of Staff, announced that the U.S. wouldn’t let the cartels “get past jump street” after the Pentagon received intelligence that they were planning to exploit the coronavirus crisis, he was not just sending a message to the drug cartels, he was sending a “message to every enemy state actor across the globe that is thinking about taking advantage of this situation in the United States” amid the coronavirus outbreak, Sara A. Carter told listeners during her podcast “The Sara Carter Show” Thursday.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Mark Milley says drug cartels will "try to take advantage” of coronavirus pandemic: “We’re at war with COVID-19, we’re at war with terrorists and we’re at war with the drug cartels … You will not penetrate this country.” https://t.co/07pnEZYTdy pic.twitter.com/JkQRsmk6X8

— ABC News (@ABC) April 1, 2020

One of those foreign adversaries is China, Carter explained. Not only is China the origin of the pandemic, it is responsible for the manufacturing of the illicit narcotic fentanyl that’s been the fuel behind the drug crisis in the U.S. and it’s been able to bring the drug into the country with the help of their distributors, the cartels.

“Remember, China imports so much fentanyl into the United States. And the reason we’re losing so many of our young lives, so many Americans in this drug war is because of that.” Carter said, “It is because of fentanyl. It is because of the amount of narcotics that are coming in through Mexico. Remember, China pushes them in through Mexico, Mexican drug cartels then push them into the United States. Although the cartels have taken over some of the production of fentanyl inside Mexico.”

Further exacerbating the problem is China’s push into South China Sea, rich in fossil fuel. In recent days the Chinese military has deployed large-scale military assets into the area and conducted military drills. The U.S. military is having to reshuffle its resources and assisting with transferring much needed medical equipment and deploying its medical personal and ships to aid in the coronavirus outbreak.

The U.S. Navy is doing its best in attempting to balance out the needs of fighting the COVID19 pandemic and keeping watch over enemy actors. For example, the New York Times reported that the Navy is “refusing to completely evacuate an aircraft carrier where 93 service members have been confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus.”

Moreover, China has still not been held accountable for the mass quantities of fentanyl being illegally shipped into the United States. Gordon Chang, a China Expert, agreed with her on the issue. He warned that China’s control of fentanyl trafficking into the U.S. is a major national security issue.

He said that the problem will only be resolved if the U.S. puts China in check.

“These fentanyl gangs are multinational,” said Chang. “They are large. They’re well organized and in a totalitarian surveillance society that China now runs, China has to know what’s going on, and, yet, these gangs continue to operate selling fentanyl into the United States and killing Americans by the tens of thousands every year.”

He continued, “So we have to, as the General (Milley) said, these gangs are killing Americans…And China is killing Americans and we’re not going to solve the fentanyl problem until we solve the China political problem. So this is all bound up together and we’ve got to recognize that this is part of an existential attack on American society where Americans are dying and Americans are not only dying.”

To learn more about the illicit trafficking of fentanyl into our country click here.