17 hours ago
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WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday he will classify fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction” to escalate his anti-drug smuggling campaign.
“There’s no doubt that America’s adversaries are trafficking fentanyl into the United States in part because they want to kill Americans. If this were a war, that would be one of the worst wars,” Trump said in the Oval Office while presenting medals to US troops who have patrolled the US-Mexican border.
The president likened illicit fentanyl smuggling, which killed nearly 330,000 Americans in the five-year period ending in April, to opium imports that ravaged 19th-century China, unleashing the Opium Wars when Beijing unsuccessfully resisted imports.
President Trump announced he will classify fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction” to escalate his anti-drug smuggling campaign. AFP via Getty Images“You can look throughout history. Look at China, when they were loaded up with drugs, they were suffering greatly, and others were able to take them over. And other countries also, they’re trying to drug out our country,” Trump said.
Trump did not immediately specify what the classification would do, though it could result in stiffer criminal charges for alleged traffickers.
He noted that fentanyl, which kills in extremely small doses and is often smuggled across the Mexican border or through the international mail and shipping systems, has legitimate medical applications.
Trump in October met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who agreed that his nation, which is the primary source of illegal fentanyl, would work to limit trafficking. Xi previously made similar commitments to Trump during his first term and to President Joe Biden.
English (US)