U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday to declare fentanyl, a drug that has wreaked havoc on the U.S. population in recent years, “a weapon of mass destruction.”
“Today I am taking one more step to protect Americans from the scourge of deadly fentanyl that is flooding our country. With this historic executive order that I will sign today, we will formally classify fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, which is what it really is,” Trump said at a White House event.
“If this were a war, it would be one of the worst wars; I think in the last five or six years between 200,000 and 300,000 people a year have died (from fentanyl). They talk about 100,000, which is a lot of people, but the number is much higher,” the U.S. president explained.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 250,000 people died between 2021 and 2023 alone from overdoses related to synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl.
Trump announced the signing of the order at an event held to honor military personnel for their work defending the border with Mexico.
The president stated that “there is no doubt that America’s adversaries are trafficking fentanyl into the United States, in part because they want to kill Americans.”
The Republican highlighted that during his term in office, he said, “a 50% reduction in the amount of fentanyl crossing the border” has been achieved, and assured that China is “working closely” with the U.S. “to reduce the number and amount of fentanyl being shipped.”
“We have managed to reduce the number to a much smaller number. It’s not satisfactory, but it soon will be,” he added.
The text of the order asserts that “illicit fentanyl is more akin to a chemical weapon than a narcotic” and that its production and sale “by foreign terrorist organizations and cartels funds the operations of these entities – which include assassinations, terrorist acts and insurgencies around the world – and allows them to undermine our national security and the well-being of our nation.”
The order instructs several Cabinet secretaries to strengthen the fight against fentanyl trafficking, and specifically states that “the Secretary of War, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, shall update all directives regarding the Armed Forces’ response to chemical incidents in the country to include the threat of illicit fentanyl.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been in the spotlight in recent weeks due to the controversial bombing raids he has coordinated on what Washington claims are boats trafficking narcotics from Venezuela, which the South American country rejects.
With information from EFE
