Washington. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to declare fentanyl, a drug that has wrought havoc on the American population in recent years, as a weapon of mass destruction.
“Today I take another step to protect Americans from the scourge of the deadly fentanyl that is flooding our country. With this historic executive order I will sign today, we will formally classify fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, which is what it really is,” declared Trump at an event held at the White House.
“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 have died each year (because of fentanyl). They talk about 100,000, which is a lot of people, but the figure is much higher,” the American president explained.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 250,000 people died just between 2021 and 2023 from overdoses related to synthetic opioids, mainly 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 the adversaries of the United States are trafficking fentanyl into the United States, in part because they want to kill Americans.”
The Republican highlighted that during his term there has been, according to him, “a 50% reduction in the amount of fentanyl crossing the border,” and he asserted that China is “working closely” with the United States “to reduce the number and amount of fentanyl that is shipped.”
“We have managed to reduce the figure to a much smaller number. It is not satisfactory, but it will soon be,” he added, talking about Mexico and the collaboration that exists to curb fentanyl trafficking.
The text of the order states that “illicit fentanyl resembles more of a chemical weapon than a narcotic” and that its production and sale “by foreign terrorist organizations and cartels finances the operations of these entities — which include murders, acts of terrorism and insurgencies around the world — and allows them to undermine our national security and the welfare of our nation.”
The order instructs several Cabinet Secretaries to strengthen the fight against fentanyl trafficking, and in particular, it states that “the Secretary of War, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, will update all directives relating to the Armed Forces’ response to chemical incidents in the country to include the threat of illicit fentanyl.”
The Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, has been in the spotlight in recent weeks due to the controversial bombings that he himself has coordinated over what Washington says are boats trafficking narcotics from Venezuela, which the South American country denies.
