{"id":18637,"date":"2025-01-26T18:03:05","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T17:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/?p=18637"},"modified":"2025-05-20T19:06:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T18:06:15","slug":"why-china-and-mexico-are-the-right-targets-for-potus-attack-on-the-scourge-of-illegal-drugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/2025\/01\/why-china-and-mexico-are-the-right-targets-for-potus-attack-on-the-scourge-of-illegal-drugs\/","title":{"rendered":"Why China and Mexico Are the Right Targets for POTUS Attack on the Scourge of Illegal Drugs"},"content":{"rendered":"

by William P. Barr & John P. Walters – 23 Jan 2025\u00a0| Hudson Institute<\/strong><\/p>\n

(This article forwarded to NDPA by Drug Free Australia)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Just weeks after the election, President-elect Trump announced that he would<\/p>\n

impose a 25% tariff on all Mexican products, and an additional 10% tariff on<\/p>\n

all Chinese products, until the flow of illegal narcotics from those<\/p>\n

countries is stopped. These measures will do more to choke off the growing<\/p>\n

scourge of illegal drugs than all steps taken in the “drug war” to date.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Over the past few years, the flow of illegal narcotics into our country has<\/p>\n

become a tsunami, with seizures of fentanyl pills skyrocketing from 4<\/p>\n

million in 2020 to 115 million last year. The devastation inflicted on<\/p>\n

American society by this traffic is catastrophic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The opioid crisis alone costs us over 100,000 overdose deaths and $1.5<\/p>\n

trillion annually, while the flood of potent methamphetamine from Mexico<\/p>\n

fuels a new wave of meth addiction, ravaging lives, families and<\/p>\n

neighborhoods in its wake.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This deadly traffic happens by weakening our border defenses and ignoring<\/p>\n

opportunities to choke off the supply chain for illicit drugs, now centered<\/p>\n

in China and Mexico.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The U.S. policy has focused on “harm reduction” inside the U.S. – deploying<\/p>\n

overdose medications, like Naxolone, and funding more treatment for<\/p>\n

addiction. While these steps are unobjectionable in themselves, they are an<\/p>\n

inadequate response to the flood of poison we are confronting. It is like<\/p>\n

addressing violent crime by offering more bandages.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Real progress requires eliminating the drug supply at its source. Here the<\/p>\n

U.S. has a golden opportunity because the supply chain for drugs poisoning<\/p>\n

America has become highly concentrated and vulnerable. It depends entirely<\/p>\n

on illegal activities in two countries – the manufacture of illicit drugs in<\/p>\n

Communist China, and drug processing and distribution operations in the<\/p>\n

cartels’ safe havens in Mexico.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All these illegal activities are carried out with – and indeed require – the<\/p>\n

connivance or willful blindness of the host governments. As Trump’s<\/p>\n

announced tariffs show, the U.S. has the tools and leverage to compel China<\/p>\n

and Mexico to shut down these operations. Doing this would strike a decisive<\/p>\n

blow: once these operations are dismantled, it would be impossible to<\/p>\n

replicate them elsewhere at anywhere near their current scale.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

China has become the hub of illegal drug production because illegal<\/p>\n

narcotics are increasingly synthesized chemically, rather than made from<\/p>\n

grown plants. China offers the two prerequisites needed to supply the U.S.<\/p>\n

market: a large chemical industrial base, and a government willing to allow<\/p>\n

its factories to make illegal narcotics and their precursors on a large<\/p>\n

scale.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chinese factories make the essential ingredients for virtually all the<\/p>\n

fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, as well as 80% of the methamphetamine,<\/p>\n

that come into the U.S. and are producing a new wave of drugs worse than<\/p>\n

fentanyl, like nitazenes and xylazines (“tranq”). Simply put, without<\/p>\n

China’s production, America’s drug problem would be mere fraction of what it<\/p>\n

is.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Communist China could easily stop this activity if it wanted to. But a<\/p>\n

recent report by the bipartisan Select Committee on the Chinese Communist<\/p>\n

Party (CCP) shows that China’s participation in the illegal drug trade is a<\/p>\n

deliberate policy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

According to the report, the Chinese government and the CCP has been<\/p>\n

granting tax subsidies to encourage their drug companies to produce and<\/p>\n

export – for consumption in the U.S. – fentanyl and other death-dealing<\/p>\n

drugs that are illegal in China, the U.S. and throughout the world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is an intolerable situation. The U.S. must compel China to stop<\/p>\n

producing these drugs by imposing an escalating series of consequences on<\/p>\n

those involved.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The initial tariff announced by Trump is a critical first step. If it<\/p>\n

doesn’t get results, further tools are available – imposing higher tariffs;<\/p>\n

targeting sanctions against the Chinese drug companies involved, and<\/p>\n

potentially indicting and seizing assets of those companies; sanctioning<\/p>\n

Chinese banks found to be involved in laundering drug money; and<\/p>\n

facilitating private lawsuits by fentanyl victims against Chinese companies<\/p>\n

making the drugs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The second major chokepoint in the drug supply chain lies in Mexico. The<\/p>\n

Mexican cartels have become the “one-stop-shop” for processing and<\/p>\n

distributing nearly all the illegal drugs coming into the U.S. – the<\/p>\n

synthetic drugs made in China, as well as the cocaine from coca plants in<\/p>\n

Latin America. Experience eliminating the Colombian Medellin and Cali<\/p>\n

cartels in the early 1990s shows that the U.S. can dismantle these<\/p>\n

organizations when it becomes directly involved, works jointly with the host<\/p>\n

governments and local forces, and uses all available national security and<\/p>\n

law enforcement tools.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But Mexico poses a particular challenge. Using bribery and terrorist<\/p>\n

tactics, the cartels have cowed and co-opted the government to the point<\/p>\n

that it is unwilling to confront them nor allow the U.S. to take effective<\/p>\n

action against them. And, even if the Mexican government was willing to<\/p>\n

tackle the cartels, their military and law enforcement is so rife with<\/p>\n

corruption they are incapable of effective action by themselves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our country cannot tolerate a failed narco-state on our border flooding<\/p>\n

America with poison. The only way forward is for the U.S. to use its massive<\/p>\n

economic leverage to compel the Mexican government to take a stand against<\/p>\n

the cartels. President Trump’s announced tariff does just this.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Because the Mexicans cannot do the job themselves, eliminating the cartels<\/p>\n

will require a joint campaign through which the U.S. engages in direct<\/p>\n

action against the cartels, using a range of our law enforcement,<\/p>\n

intelligence and military capabilities. The Mexican cartels are more like<\/p>\n

foreign terrorist groups, like ISIS, than they are the American mafia – and<\/p>\n

it is heartening that President Trump has signed an executive order<\/p>\n

designating them as such. It is time to confront them as national-security<\/p>\n

threats, not a law-enforcement matter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Attacking the source of the problem overseas does not mean we should pull<\/p>\n

back from trying to dismantle trafficking operations inside the U.S. But<\/p>\n

progress abroad will produce exponentially greater results than anything we<\/p>\n

do at home. Trump’s tariff initiative shows, that, rather than dither with<\/p>\n

America’s stubborn drug crisis and passing it on to his successor, Trump is<\/p>\n

willing to tackle it head on with decisive action.<\/p>\n

Source: https:\/\/drugfree.org.au\/index.php<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by William P. Barr & John P. Walters – 23 Jan 2025\u00a0| Hudson Institute (This article forwarded to NDPA by Drug Free Australia)   Just weeks after the election, President-elect Trump announced that he would impose a 25% tariff on all Mexican products, and an additional 10% tariff on all Chinese products, until the flow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,122,104,40,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic","category-fentanyl","category-political-sector","category-prevention-research","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drugprevent.org.uk\/ppp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}