China’s communist government will put tighter restrictions on three chemicals used to produce fentanyl, the White House said Tuesday, hailing it as a step that will save lives in the U.S.

National Security Council acting spokesman Sean Savett called it a “valuable step forward” in the fight against fentanyl — a synthetic opioid that is the number-one culprit in an overdose crisis that kills more than 100,000 Americans per year.

“This marks the third significant scheduling action by the [People’s Republic of China] since President Biden met with President Xi [Jinping] and resumed bilateral counternarcotics cooperation with the PRC in November 2023,” Mr. Savett said.

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Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi agreed in California last year to cooperate on efforts to reduce the flow of precursor chemicals from Chinese factories to places like Mexico, where criminal cartels turn the chemical into fentanyl and ship the drugs into the U.S.

Cartels often package fentanyl into fake prescription pills, turning an easy profit while unsuspecting users die because they thought they were taking Adderall or some other drug.

Fentanyl flooded the drug supply during the Obama administration and has bedeviled local, state and federal leaders in both parties.

There were 107,543 drug overdose deaths in the United States during 2023, a 3% decrease from the 111,029 deaths estimated in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The drop was the first annual decrease in drug overdose deaths since 2018.

Congress is considering ways to put fentanyl chemicals on the U.S.’ Schedule I of drugs, the most restrictive list, though the effort has been held up by worries the move would lead to rampant incarceration of drug offenders.

Some experts say Congress needs to strike a deal and crack down on the drug to show countries like China it is serious about the problem.