In a March 20 letter, members of the Select House Committee on the Chinese Communist Party called on several federal agencies to curb the alleged influx of China-produced e-cigarettes being smuggled into America.
Co-authored by the committee’s ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Chairman John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), and Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), the missive asked the agency heads to cooperate in combating illegal electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS).
Recipients of the letter included Attorney General Pam Bondi of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, and Acting Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Sara Brenner.
This communication follows a series of similar efforts by Krishnamoorthi dating back to December 2023, when he and others penned a missive to the FDA and DOJ, a follow-up in February 2024, and his bid to end vaping among American youth in April 2024, as reported by the Select Committee’s website.
A joint FDA-Customs and Border Protection (CBP) raid followed in October 2024, which led to the seizure of approximately $76 million worth of e-cigarettes, as well as another on a warehouse in Miami in January 2025, when officials confiscated $7 million worth of vaping devices, according to FDA reports.
Krishnamoorthi, Moolenaar, and Johnson’s March 20 letter names the Miami warehouse raid, noting that in the raid, officials seized 628,000 devices before calling on DHS, DOJ, and FDA for “decisive action” to end the e-cigarette problem “once and for all.”
“The rise in vaping and e-cigarette use among America’s youth has been a growing concern in recent years. Even more troubling is that one of our greatest adversaries, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is fueling this crisis,” the letter reads.
It further notes that “the mislabeling of e-cigarette shipments, evasion of customs, and attempts to bypass U.S. Customs and Border Protection demonstrate clear and deliberate intent to turn a blind eye” to what it called “one of America’s greatest public health crises.”
The FDA news release announcing the Jan. 10 raid mirrored this statement. It pointed out that the e-cigarettes were “intentionally misdeclared and also undervalued” to avoid detection.
It noted in the same release that the products did not have “mandatory premarket tobacco authorization” and were thus not allowed in the United States.
The letter went on to cite an October 2022 article by The Guardian reporting that China, at the time, banned fruity-flavored vapes within its own borders but continued to export them.
Based on this report the letter reasoned: “If these products are deemed unsafe for their own citizens, we must question their efforts to smuggle and sell these products in the United States.”
It further noted that while the FDA had only approved 34 different kinds of vapes, the number of variants in the country during the same year exceeded 9,000.
“This means over 8,000 are largely unauthorized disposable vapes, the overwhelming majority of which are from [China],” the letter observed, before pointing to the risk the devices posed to minors.
“As you know, youth vaping puts the next generation at great risk for developing nicotine addictions and harms brain development. In fact, disturbingly, many of these products are deliberately flavored in a manner targeted to youth users.”
It goes on to say that these devices, though not approved by the FDA due to their unsafe components, make it into the U.S. because their China-based manufacturers exploit legal blindspots to “evade FDA oversight.”
It notes that importers also change the names and labeling and use phony QR codes to get around bans.
A consequence of this behavior, according to the letter, is the undermining of America’s public health efforts, harm to consumers—specifically minors—and the violation of U.S. trade laws.
The letter points to previous efforts in the field including Krishnamoorthi’s Dec. 4, 2024, announcement that he had written to five of China’s largest e-cigarette companies and six U.S.-based distributors asking for information on compliance, shipping, investors, and sales to children.
The committee members called on the FDA, DOJ, and DHS to band together to impose “civil and criminal penalties both against companies who unlawfully export ENDS products to the United States and the distributors who sell them to America’s children.”
“It is time to go even further and utilize all enforcement tools at our disposal,” the letter continued, concluding deterrence of “future unlawful importation of ENDS products” to turn the tide of what it dubbed a “national health crisis.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the agencies on the receiving end of the committee’s letter.
The October 2024 and January 2025 raids by the FDA and DOJ that saw over $80 million worth of contraband seized cumulatively followed the formation of a joint task force. A news release announcing the collaboration on the FDA website on June 10 of the same year noted that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Marshals Service, the Federal Trade Commission, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service would join ranks to crack down on illegal e-cigarettes with a specific focus on its distribution among minors.
“Unauthorized e-cigarettes and vaping products continue to jeopardize the health of Americans—particularly children and adolescents—across the country,” stated then Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer.
“This interagency Task Force is dedicated to protecting Americans by combatting the unlawful sale and distribution of these products. And the establishment of this Task Force makes clear that vigorous enforcement of the tobacco laws is a government-wide priority,” said Mizer.
