By Gram Slattery

WASHINGTON Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley staked out one of the most hawkish positions on China in the 2024 Republican presidential field, calling for Washington to drastically limit ties with its geopolitical foe to address a dramatic rise in fentanyl deaths in the United States.

"I will push Congress to revoke permanent normal trade relations until the flow of fentanyl ends. If China wants normal trade, it has to stop killing Americans," Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under former President Donald Trump, wrote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

China is a major producer of the chemicals that are required to create fentanyl, which is frequently smuggled over the U.S.-Mexico border. The National Institute on Drug Abuse says fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid 50-100 times more potent than morphine, has contribute to a sharp rise in drug overdose deaths in the US.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Haley's remarks.

Several candidates vying for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination have adopted a confrontational stance toward China, though Haley appears to be upping the ante by putting forth a series of aggressive policy proposals.

Haley, who is in the single digits in all opinion polls, also pledged to shut down a pathway for the export of certain sensitive technologies to China from the United States.

Currently, the U.S. Department of Commerce must grant waivers for companies to send certain technologies, such as microchips, to China. Haley wrote that her administration would no longer grant such waivers.

(Reporting by Gram Slattery, editing by Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)