MOSCOW — A Soyuz capsule carrying two Russians and one American from the International Space Station landed Sunday in Kazakhstan, ending their seven-month research assignment.

According to Russian space agency Roscosmos, the capsule carrying Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner and astronaut Don Pettit of U.S. space agency NASA landed on the Kazakh steppe near the city of Zhezkazgan at 6:20 a.m. (0120 GMT). Roscosmos said the parachute-assisted landing was a trouble-free descent.

The trio returned after spending 220 days in space and orbiting the Earth 3,520 times, NASA said in a statement. The agency noted that, coincidentally, Pettit celebrated his 70th birthday on Sunday.

NASA said it was following its routine postlanding medical checks, and that the crew will return to the recovery staging area in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Pettit will then board a NASA plane bound for the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while Roscosmos said Ovchinin and Vagner will depart for a training base in Star City, Russia.

On Friday, Ovchinin handed over command of the ISS to Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi in a change of command ceremony.

BEIJING — U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, is visiting Beijing as the U.S. and China swap tariff threats and harsh words over each others’ handling of the illegal trade in fentanyl.

Daines, a Republican from Montana, arrived in the Chinese capital on Thursday after meeting top leaders in Vietnam, according to social media posts by him and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

He said on X earlier this week that he would be talking with Chinese officials about curbing the production and distribution of fentanyl and “the need to reduce the trade deficit and ensure fair market access for our Montana farmers, ranchers and producers.”

His office said ahead of the trip that he is coordinating closely with the White House and will be “carrying President Trump’s America First agenda.”

Daines previously worked as an executive for U.S. companies in China and served as a go-between during Trump’s first term in office when tariffs were also a major issue. He is the first member of Congress to visit Beijing since Trump took office in January.

U.S.-China tensions have spiked as the U.S. imposed 20% duties on Chinese goods, drawing retaliatory tariffs of 15% on U.S. farm goods from China this past week. The U.S. accuses China of doing too little to stop the export of precursor materials for fentanyl, a highly potent opiate blamed for tens of thousands of deaths in the U.S.

China responded with a report detailing its efforts to control the illegal trade in fentanyl, specifically the ingredients for the opioid that are made in China, and the foreign minister blasted the U.S. for responding to Beijing’s goodwill with tariffs.

The report said that China and the U.S. have held multiple high-level meetings since early last year to promote cooperation, and that its Narcotics Control Bureau holds regular exchanges with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

China is committed to cooperation, the report said, “but firmly opposes the U.S. imposition of unlawful sanctions and unreasonable pressure on China on the pretext of responding to fentanyl-related issues.”

TAIPEI, Taiwan — U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada, Mexico and China is ramping up over the production and importation of the opiate fentanyl, along with trade surpluses and illegal border crossings by migrants from across the globe.

Here is what Beijing says about it:

China has reiterated its threat to take “necessary countermeasures to defend its legitimate rights and interests” following Trump’s decision to impose 10% tariffs on China for allegedly doing too little to stem the production of precursor chemicals for fentanyl.

The Foreign Ministry statement issued Sunday did not mention any specific retaliatory measures, but said “China calls on the United States to correct its wrongdoings, maintain the hard-won positive dynamics in the counternarcotics cooperation, and promote a steady, sound and sustainable development of China-U.S. relationship.”

China says the U.S. action violates World Trade Organization rules and has vowed to bring a case before the body that governs global commerce.

The Ministry of Public Security on Sunday made near identical charges and the Commerce Ministry also issued a closely worded statement.

Trump accuses China of allowing the production of fentanyl, which is then made into tablets in Mexico and smuggled into and distributed throughout the U.S., which records some 70,000 overdose deaths from the drug annually.

China says the U.S. must hold itself to account instead of “threatening other countries with arbitrary tariff hikes,” the Foreign Ministry said. “The United States needs to view and solve its own fentanyl issue in an objective and rational way … (China is) one of the world’s toughest countries on counternarcotics both in terms of policy and its implementation.”

Experts say China executes an unknown number of people each year for smuggling drugs, but domestic drug use is relatively low.

The Ministry of Public Security statement said the U.S. has not reported any fentanyl precursor seizures originating in China since Beijing began to take legal action.

China’s enormous trade deficit with the U.S., which reached nearly $1 trillion last year, has been a constant target of Trump’s complaints. Tariffs would make Chinese goods more expensive for U.S. consumers, who will ultimately have to pay a significant part of the cost of importing everything from toys to clothing.

China’s vital export market could be impacted if U.S. consumers decide to “buy American.” The Chinese domestic economy has failed to respond to a range of government-backed stimuli, while foreign infrastructure projects and other major government initiatives that add to the country’s already high public debt threaten more economic stagnation.

That is already starting to derail Chinese President Xi Jinping’s push to overtake the U.S. in key economic and political indicators, threatening his ultimate ambition to conquer the island republic of Taiwan and assert Chinese primacy in the Indo-Pacific region.

Stopping illegal immigration has also been one of Trump’s core political messages, and was named in tariff actions against U.S. neighbors Mexico and Canada. Illegal arrivals from China are considered a fraction of such numbers, but Trump has put virtually every country on notice that he will hold them accountable for their nationals who enter the U.S. outside the law.