The Trump administration received some good news when the Senate confirmed Dr. Marty Makary as head of the Food and Drug Administration. This is a critical nomination to get through because the FDA will play an integral role in executing the president’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
Without a doubt, we need him at his post now more than ever!
To advance the MAHA agenda, one focus area for the FDA must be to stop the onslaught of unregulated, illicit electronic cigarettes coming in from our most dangerous foreign adversary—China.
The issue was even specifically brought up during Makary’s recent confirmation hearing. Sen. Ashley Moody, R-Fla., posed a critical question: “What is going on with the FDA and its refusal to address … Chinese vapes that are flooding [U.S.] markets?”
Moody noted that two-thirds of the e-cigarettes, or vapes, sold in the U.S. are smuggled in from China. Even more concerning, these products not only exceed FDA nicotine limits but also come in flavors like “strawberry blowpop” and “sour berry”—furthering the notion that these are clearly designed to appeal to children. They are also mislabeled in an attempt to avoid U.S. customs enforcement.
Unfortunately, Moody couldn’t be more correct!
In his first term, President Donald Trump called illegal Chinese e-cigarettes “poison” and subsequently took action to ban them. Ironically, China also banned these products for its own citizens!
So, what did Chinese e-cigarette makers do? They found ways to smuggle their products into the U.S. These unregulated e-cigarettes have accounted for nearly $17 billion in annual U.S. retail sales since the end of the first Trump administration, when illicit sales were minimal—exposing millions of American consumers to unknown chemicals and toxins.
But how did this happen?
In short, regulatory incompetence. President Joe Biden’s FDA’s failure to issue a definitive list of approved products for sale in the U.S. substantially contributed to the surge of illicit e-cigarettes. The administration’s inaction left the market in chaos, allowing Chinese manufacturers to establish dominance and control a sophisticated supply chain of importers, distributors, and retailers.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last summer, both Republicans and Democrats admonished Biden’s FDA and Department of Justice for their failure to mitigate this growing epidemic. In no uncertain terms, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., stated, “These illegal products, clearly designed for children by their flavors, are being sold in the shadow of FDA’s building.”
Even so, how do these Chinese companies penetrate our borders?
These manufacturers have expanded their presence in the U.S., acting as importers to bypass our Border Patrol and FDA regulations by misrepresenting flavored e-cigarettes as toys, chargers, lights, shoes, and other items, making it even more challenging for authorities to track and regulate these unauthorized products.
Once in, the products are then warehoused and distributed to domestic wholesalers—all the while the companies are marketing their goods to young Americans. This vertical integration has enabled Chinese companies to streamline operations, maintain a competitive edge, and further complicate enforcement efforts.
To be clear, the acute malignancy here is not the practice of vaping as a whole but rather the unregulated Chinese e-cigarettes pouring into our neighborhoods. Indeed, authorities who study vaping report that e-cigarettes, if properly regulated, are a less dangerous alternative to traditional cigarettes for adults who smoke.
As the United Kingdom’s National Health Service stated, “Nicotine vaping is less harmful than smoking.” Better yet, it is “one of the most effective tools for quitting smoking.” However, ingesting harmful unknown chemicals from unregulated Chinese e-cigarettes undercuts all of that entirely.
To his great credit, Makary has pledged to crack down on illegal e-cigarettes. As he told Moody in response to her question at the hearing, “We are being flooded with Chinese products; we have no idea what’s in these products.”
While Makary reexamines the agency’s approach to regulating e-cigarettes, the administration must address this foreign exploitation of Americans by strengthening border enforcement to stop the flood of this Chinese “poison.” Trump should also pressure the Chinese government to halt exports of these illegal products.
In addition, America’s law enforcement agencies must crack down on the foreign manufacturers circumventing our laws. The FDA—in tandem with the DOJ—should leverage every remedy possible under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and other relevant statutes, like Section 301 of the Tobacco Control Act, to open up full-scale investigations into these companies and remove these extremely dangerous products off our streets once and for all.
These incremental measures alone will put us one step closer in making Americans healthy again and send a message to China that its days of undermining U.S. laws are over.
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