China has surreptitiously invaded our markets in almost every conceivable way. With the promise of cheap labor, Beijing stole American intellectual property. With the promise of inexpensive equipment, it took control of multiple U.S. routers, backhauls, cell sites and mobile devices. With the promise of cheap laughs, it has captured and poisoned our children’s minds and siphoned data with its deceptively innocuous dancing app TikTok.
Now, it is flooding our markets with dangerous flavored e-cigarettes. And it is targeting kids. President Trump, during his first term, had the foresight to warn us against illegal Chinese-made e-cigarettes, which he described as outright “poison.” He said that it “could be horrible” for them to enter our markets, given China’s indifference to our safety standards.
Indeed, the president’s fears have come to fruition. As Brilyn Hollyhand — the Republican National Committee’s Youth Advisory Council chair — described, “The CCP is attacking our youth by handing these deadly flavored treats out like they’re candy.” He went on to say that these Chinese vapes “are weapons of mass destruction” to “the health of (his) generation.”
How are Chinese e-cigarette manufacturers able to wreak such havoc? Through our failures to police our borders.
Generally, e-cigarettes fall into a special class of import that requires prior approval from the Food and Drug Administration to enter our markets. However, CCP-affiliated Chinese manufacturers have vertically integrated every aspect of distribution and supply chains for vapes. This vertical integration gives them a strong foothold in producing e-cigarettes, where they can act as importers to circumvent U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s oversight and FDA regulations.
How?
The companies exploit an FDA loophole by “mis-declaring” flavored e-cigarette products such as toys, chargers, lights, shoes and other items. This act makes it nearly impossible for authorities to track and control the influx of these dangerous, unauthorized products. It has led to a “whack-a-mole” situation at our border. The result of this campaign is that these companies can bypass our border agents with ease to get dangerous e-cigarettes into the hands of teens and younger Americans.
Look, China attempting to use our laws and crises to distort our free markets and legal frameworks is nothing new. It is their standard playbook. For instance, TikTok leverages Section 230 — a law made to assure passive platforms can facilitate more online speech — to obfuscate its responsibility when it intentionally uses its algorithm to push dangerous online challenges to children. Some have even resulted in child deaths.
Temu and Shein use our de minimis exemption — originally designed to “allow American tourists to send back goods they bought overseas tax-free” — to skirt trade regulations. This act ensures their dangerous products — even flammable children’s clothing — avoid border agents’ oversight and go directly to U.S. consumers.
For too long, we have let China dictate what our laws say and do. Even when American academics dissent, they slap baseless defamation suits against them to shut down any academic reports that expose how CCP-affiliated companies adversely affect American consumers.
The good news is that we’re turning this franchise around. To start, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals categorically rejected TikTok’s Section 230 defense when it asserted that privilege in a case concerning the death of a young child who died while participating in its “blackout challenge.”
The Trump administration, too, has come out swinging against China. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has secured a monumental win in Panama by getting assurances that the country will not be renewing its deal with China’s Belt and Road Initiative — a fundamental economic policy for China to lock-in its control over the world’s roads, rails, energy, ports and digital infrastructure. Additionally, Trump promulgated an executive order that imposes a 10 percent tariff on China for exacerbating the fentanyl crisis.
These are steps forward. However, more must be done to combat the detrimental effect China’s illegal e-cigarettes have on children.
For this issue, the administration should secure our borders and simultaneously direct the FDA to publish a clear list of products allowed for sale in the United States. Even incremental changes to the FDA’s rules and guidance will go a long way to fight the tsunami of dangerous e-cigarettes that China has descended on our youth.
