More than 85 Republican members of Congress have asked the Trump Administration in recent months to crack down on illicit Chinese vape products in the U.S.
The congressional efforts come as U.S. state and federal law enforcement officials have seized more than 4.7 million illicit e-cigarettes and over 28,000 pounds of illegal vape products since September.
“These [Chinese vapes] are a threat to national security,” 71 Republican U.S. House members wrote in a March 2025 letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer, reported the Washington Reporter.
“The Department of Justice has reported that unauthorized vapes are frequently smuggled from China and sold near schools and military bases, putting minors and service members at risk,” said the letter. “The Drug Enforcement Administration has investigated vape shops in proximity to military installations and found that many are owned or operated by foreign nationals suspected of deliberately targeting military personnel.”
That letter came a month after 16 Republican U.S. Senators sent a similar letter to Bessent and Greer.
“We write to draw your attention to the growing risks associated with the massive volumes of illicit Chinese e-cigarettes flooding into the United States,” said the letter. “We fully support President Trump’s aggressive, multi-agency enforcement actions taken to confront this pressing threat as addressing illegal activity of this magnitude and consequence requires a comprehensive strategy and response.”
“Accordingly, we respectfully urge the Treasury Department and the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to take appropriate action within their respective authorities,” the senators wrote.
Last week, U.S. Rep. Brad Knott (R-NC-13) said the Chinese Communist Party is deliberately bypassing trade restrictions to saturate the U.S. market with dangerous counterfeit vape products.
“The Chinese Communist Party has carried out an elaborate effort to skirt trade barriers and flood the U.S. market with dangerous counterfeit vape products," Knott told Breitbart. “This is not a secret. It is known.”
“For too many, it is unfortunately an accepted means to undercut legitimate and authentic products so a quick profit can be had through selling counterfeit goods,” said Knott.
Knott’s comments came a few weeks after New York state officials announced the seizure of more than 28,000 pounds—over 14 tons—of illicit vapor products in Nassau and Orange counties.
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) said the investigation found that Ecto World, a Buffalo-area major distributor also known as Demand Vape, “has been illegally shipping massive quantities of vape products to sub-distributors and unlicensed retail shops across the state, including the especially large shipments to Long Island and Orange County that were seized by police as part of this operation,” reported Empire State Today.
Richard Marianos, a former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives official and executive director of the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network, said the New York seizure was “very important in terms of disrupting and breaking the back of Chinese organized crime who’s manufacturing these products and pushing them out to these warehouses, these wholesalers,” before they ultimately end up “in the hands of our children,” reported Breitbart.
Marianos added that “a lot of them” are tied to broader trafficking networks involving “narcotics, trade-based money laundering, possession of guns and selling guns, wanted offenders.”
“Some of these vape shops have become almost licensed crack houses in the United States,” he said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Food and Drug Administration announced on September 10, 2025, what they described as the largest illegal vape seizure in U.S. history, involving 4.7 million unauthorized e-cigarette products with an estimated retail value of $86.5 million. The agencies said the seizures were part of a joint federal operation in Chicago, and that almost all of the illegal shipments originated in China.
The same month, the Drug Enforcement Administration launched “Operation Vape Trail," a multi-agency initiative involving the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Health and Human Services. The operation has resulted in the seizure of more than 2.3 million vape devices and cartridges and more than 100 weapons, reported Breitbart.
Knott said such illicit activity from China, including what he said is the skirting of trade barriers, “harms American businesses, American farmers, and American children.”
“Personally, I refuse to meet with any representatives of groups wrapped up in this scheme, including the Vapor Technology Association, and I urge my colleagues in Congress to do the same," said Knott.
The executive director of the Vapor Technology Association, Tony Abboud, also serves on the Electronic Cigarette Industry Committee of the China Electronics Chamber of Commerce (ECCC), Fox News reported. The ECCC operates under the China Electronics Chamber of Commerce, which is registered with China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs. The association partnered with the committee to form the Global Vape Alliance in late 2023.
Based in the greater Chicago area, Abboud has served as executive director of the Vapor Technology Association since 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also founded Strategic Government Solutions Inc. in 2010 and previously served as of counsel at Greenberg Traurig and ran Abboud Legal LLC, advising businesses on legal and regulatory matters.
The report also said Abboud has met several times with Ao Weinuo, secretary-general of the ECCC, including at the 2023 InterTabac trade show in Germany, where they appeared on the same panel and posed for photographs; the Total Product Expo in Las Vegas in February 2024, where they hosted an after-party; the New Tobacco Forum in New York City in September 2024; and visits to China in December 2023 and December 2024.
The Vapor Technology Association has lobbied several states to oppose directory bills that would crack down on Chinese vape companies and has ramped up pressure on the Trump administration to “uphold their promise to save the flavored vaping industry,” reported Fox News.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary, M.D., M.P.H., announced in September 2025 an effort to increase "voluntary compliance from retailers" to reduce the distribution of illicit vaping products.
"The FDA has not authorized any such products, which are mainly illegally imported from China," said Makary in a statement. "As much as 54% of vaping products sold nationally are illegal. These products frequently contain chemicals such as formaldehyde, lead, and acrolein—materials more commonly found in industrial textiles and pesticides."
