On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump announced plans to start a “large-scale” ad campaign to educate Americans about the effects of fentanyl.
“I will be working on a large-scale advertising campaign in the United States to highlight how dangerous Fentanyl is for people to use, as millions of lives are being lost needlessly. “By the end of the campaign, everyone will understand the true horror of this drug,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the drug is classified as a synthetic opioid that killed 74,000 people last year and will kill another 76,000 by 2023.
The Biden administration formed a Trilateral Fentanyl Committee with the United States, Mexico, and Canada to combat the illegal drug’s spread across neighboring countries.
President Biden also met with China’s President Xi Jinping in 2023, resulting in the resumption of counternarcotics cooperation with the country that produces the bulk of fentanyl chemical precursors.
Trump hasn’t said much about how he intends to address the internal fentanyl epidemic in his administration, but he has already warned foreign leaders that huge tariffs will be imposed if narcotics and illegal immigration continue to enter the United States.
On his first day in office, Trump promised to put a 25% tariff on all imports from Canada and Mexico until “drugs, particularly fentanyl, and all illegal aliens stop this invasion of our country.”
He reportedly urged China to execute “any drug dealers” discovered trafficking fentanyl into the United States. If not, the former president stated that he would impose an additional 10% duty on top of any existing duties imposed on the country.
Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc responded to Trump’s remarks, stressing that the country places “the highest priority on border security.”
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum allegedly stated that she will send a letter to Trump in the aim of opening a line of contact.
Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy, agreed that “no one will win a trade or tariff war.”
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