Will Trump's tariffs help America tackle its fentanyl crisis?
Progress has been made recently to tackle fentanyl overdose deaths in the US, prior to Trump’s return to the Oval Office.
A large chunk of Mexicans - cartels not included - will be breathing a sigh of relief this evening after Donald Trump placed an “immediate pause” on his plan to whack a 25 per cent tariff on Mexico from tomorrow.
The country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, also confirmed that Trump’s tariffs will be delayed for one month after the two leaders held a “good conversation” in which she agreed to deploy an additional 10,000 Mexican National Guard troops to the border. One of these troops’ key tasks, she specified, will be preventing trafficking of fentanyl across the border.
Aside from his aversion to trade deficits and unlawful border crossings, Trump has justified his plan to impose a sweeping set of import taxes on America’s three largest trading partners by accusing them of fueling a public health crisis. Canada, Mexico and China are responsible for an “unprecedented invasion of illegal fentanyl that has killed tens of millions of Americans,” claims White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
How so?
First, a quick recap of the drug-in-question. Approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid and highly addictive painkiller.
While Leavitt’s estimated death toll is a considerable exaggeration, fentanyl is a leading cause of overdose deaths in America. Nearly 75,000 Americans died of fentanyl overdoses in 2023. And, though it is not the original driver of America’s homegrown opioid crisis - rampant since the 1990’s when prescription opioids like OxyContin were first introduced as painkillers - it is the drug largely driving the crisis in the last decade.
When the fentanyl crisis first took hold in the US, the drug was primarily coming from China, thanks to its huge chemical manufacturing industry. In 2019, Beijing responded to US pressure and designated fentanyl as a controlled substance, leading to a big drop in direct shipments to the US. However, China wasn’t eliminated from the global supply chain. Instead, Chinese companies became the biggest source of fentanyl “precursors” — the chemicals required to make it — which are then shipped to countries such as Mexico where criminal gangs will assemble the drug and smuggle it across the border.
On this issue, Canada appears to be an unfair scapegoat. While America’s northern neighbour is experiencing a fentanyl crisis of its own, there is no evidence to suggest that significant amounts of fentanyl flows into the US from Canada. Data from the US Drug Enforcement Administration supports Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s claims that smuggling from Canada contributes less than 1% of the fentanyl street supply in the US. In 2024, just 43 pounds of fentanyl was seized at America's northern border, compared with roughly 21,100 seized at the southern border.
Will tariffs go any way to curb the illegal flow of fentanyl in the US?
Trump’s new tariff orders all contain clauses suspending a duty-free exemption for low-value shipments below $800 - something that could help since this loophole has allowed shipments of fentanyl and its precursor chemicals to enter the US undetected.
Thought it’s important to note that some progress has been made recently to tackle America’s opioid crisis, prior to Trump’s return to the Oval Office.
According to the CDC, fatal overdoses from fentanyl and all other street drugs have plummeted nationally by more than 21 per cent since June 2023, falling below 90,000 deaths in a 12-month period for the first time in roughly half a decade.
It’s thought that this drop is down to a crackdown on a few key Mexican syndicates but also thanks to enhanced US-Chinese co-operation.
Under the Biden administration, Washington and Beijing set up a counternarcotics working group - a rare moment of progress in an otherwise fraught diplomatic relationship. By October 2024, experts on fentanyl smuggling claimed that these measures were finally squeezing the pipeline of fentanyl reaching American streets, making the drug harder to find.
Might Trump’s tariff threats encourage China, much like Mexico, to go even further to help the US tackle the illegal fentanyl trade?
Perhaps, though it could have the opposite effect. So far, China’s foreign ministry has denounced Trump’s tariffs and snapped: “Fentanyl is America’s problem”.
Caitlin Allen
Deputy Editor
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