Senate Intelligence Panel Hearing Focuses on Mexican Cartels’ Fentanyl, Chinese Suppliers

Leaders of the U.S. intel community on Tuesday went before the Senate Intelligence Committee to discuss their recently published 2025 Annual Threat Assessment.

The panel of witnesses included Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel, National Security Agency Director Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh, and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse. 

The committee hearing focused extensively on non-state actors—most notoriously, the drug cartels—that threaten American security and prosperity. 

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“Based on the latest reporting available for a yearlong period ending October 2024, cartels were largely responsible for the deaths of more than 54,000 U.S. citizens from synthetic opioids,” Gabbard said. 

She noted that Mexico-based transnational criminal organizations—that is, the Mexican drug cartels—are the main suppliers of illegal fentanyl in the United States. She told the committee that the cartels were adapting to the Trump administration’s crackdown by getting precursor chemicals and equipment from China and India. She also pointed out that the cartels also are in charge of massive human-trafficking efforts at the U.S.’ southern border.

“Cartels are profiting from human trafficking and have likely facilitated more than 2 million illegal immigrants encountered by law enforcement at the U.S. southwest border in 2024 alone, straining our vital resources and putting the American people at risk,” explained Gabbard, a former four-term congresswoman from Hawaii.  

According to Gabbard, “heightened U.S. border security, enforcement, and deportations under the Trump administration are proving to serve as a deterrent for migrants seeking to illegally cross U.S. borders.” The intelligence chief cited Border Patrol apprehensions along the southwest border in January 2025 as having dropped 85% compared with January 2024 as an example of the efficacy of that deterrence. 

The FBI’s Patel noted in his remarks the many crimes that illegal aliens had committed while unlawfully remaining in the United States. 

“[S]ince Feb. 5 alone, we have 220 illegal immigrants arrested on charges varying from violent offenses, weapons offenses, narcotics offenses, and serious violent felonies,” Patel said. 

He noted that the FBI had recently seized tens of millions of dollars’ worth of drugs, from fentanyl to methamphetamines to cocaine to heroin to marijuana in Arkansas alone. 

In his testimony, the CIA’s Ratcliffe explained that the Chinese government could crack down on the illicit drug if it wanted to. 

“No, there’s nothing that [prevents] China—the People’s Republic of China—from cracking down on fentanyl precursors, as you well know, Senator. One of the reasons that they don’t is that there are more than 600 PRC-related companies that produce those precursor chemicals in an industry that generates $1.5 trillion,” Ratcliffe told Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

The committee hearing also addressed the recent report that Trump administration officials were communicating about U.S. efforts to bomb Houthi rebels in Yemen via a Signal group chat that also accidentally included The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. 

“One of the first things that happened when I was confirmed as CIA director was, Signal was loaded onto my computer at the CIA, as it is for most CIA officers. One of the things that I was briefed on very early, senator, was by the CIA records management folks about the use of Signal as a permissible work use. It is. That is a practice that preceded the current administration to the Biden administration,” Ratcliffe said.

The CIA chief contended that his communications in the Signal message group “were entirely permissible and lawful and did not include classified information.” Gabbard reiterated that it was her assessment that “there was no classified material that was shared [in the Signal group chat].” She also said the Signal chat was currently under review. Gabbard and Ratcliffe also both said they would be willing to submit to an audit to confirm that they had not participated in a group chat or any other chat on another app that contained any classified information.