President Trump on Monday designated fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction,” ratcheting up the pressure on Latin America to combat the flow of the illicit drug into the U.S.
The designation allows the Trump administration to access money allocated for detecting and eliminating weapons of mass destruction. It also enables the Justice Department to pursue tougher sentences in fentanyl trafficking cases and empowers the Defense Department to take national security measures to secure the U.S. border from fentanyl trafficking.
Typically, the government uses the term weapon of mass destruction to describe bombs or other deadly military assets. Homeland Security defines weapons of mass destruction as “radiological, chemical, biological, or other device that is intended to harm a large number of people.”
“No bomb does what this is doing,” Mr. Trump said at an Oval Office event to award the Mexican Border Defense Medal to members of the military who are working to crack down on crossings at the U.S. southern border.
Mr. Trump awarded 13 soldiers and Marines the Mexican Border Defense Medal, saying they were doing “an outstanding job” securing the U.S. border.
“You guys have jumped at the mission, gotten after it, and I think it’s been six months of effectively zero crossings on the southern border, which [was] the goal,” Mr. Trump said.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House border czar Tom Homan touted Trump policies that have virtually closed the border to illegal traffic.
“There’s no doubt that America’s adversaries are trafficking fentanyl into the United States, in part because they want to kill Americans,” Mr. Trump said, adding that fentanyl kills between 200,000 and 300,000 Americans each year. “If this were a war, that would be one of the worst wars.”
Mr. Trump previously pointed to fentanyl deaths to justify a series of strikes against alleged drug-running boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. Administration officials say the boats were being used to smuggle drugs, and Mr. Trump has vowed to expand the attacks to target drug production facilities on land in Colombia and Venezuela.
“We’re going to start hitting them on land, which is a lot easier to do, frankly, but these are a direct military threat to the United States of America,” Mr. Trump said.
Since coming into office, Mr. Trump has aggressively targeted the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. He imposed tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, arguing those countries must do more to curb the flow of fentanyl. He has also designated multiple drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and signed into law the HALT-Fentanyl Act, which imposed more stringent prison sentences for fentanyl traffickers.
The White House had been discussing the idea of designating fentanyl as a WMD for at least six months. Earlier this year, Rep. Lauren Boebert, Colorado Republican, introduced a bill that would require the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office to classify the drug as under its purview.
