President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday declaring fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction.”
“No bomb does what this is doing — 200 to 300,000 people die every year that we know of," Trump said. "So we’re formally classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction!”
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The designation triggers a series of new directives across federal agencies aimed at disrupting fentanyl production, trafficking and financial networks.
- The order directs the attorney general to immediately pursue criminal charges, sentencing enhancements, and sentencing variances in fentanyl trafficking cases.
- The order directs the secretary of state and the secretary of the treasury to pursue appropriate actions against relevant assets and financial institutions for those involved in or supporting the manufacture, distribution, and sale of illicit fentanyl and its core precursor chemicals.
- The order directs the secretary of defense and attorney general to determine whether the Department of Defense should provide enhanced national security resources to the Department of Justice as necessary during an emergency situation involving a weapon of mass destruction.
- The order directs the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, to update their chemical incident response-related directives to include the fentanyl threat.
- The order directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to identify fentanyl smuggling networks using WMD and nonproliferation-related threat intelligence.
This is the latest move as the administration continues to pursue aggressive measures against fentanyl trafficking, including stricter enforcement at the U.S. Mexico border.
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Trump has also repeatedly targeted suspected drug-smuggling vessels off the coast of Venezuela and has threatened possible land strikes.
The term “weapons of mass destruction” carries significant historical weight. The U.S. cited suspected weapons of mass destruction as a key justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The war lasted years, resulted in thousands of deaths and no stockpiles of such weapons were ever found.
Scripps News has been investigating the alarming and often hidden crisis of children poisoned by fentanyl. See our reporting at scrippsnews.com/fentanyl.
