President Donald Trump indicators an government order classifying fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction,” throughout a ceremony for the presentation of the Mexican Border Protection Medal within the Oval Workplace of the White Home on December 15, 2025 in Washington, DC. D
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President Trump on Monday signed an government order designating the road drug fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.
“The manufacture and distribution of fentanyl, primarily carried out by organized prison networks, threatens our nationwide safety and fuels lawlessness in our hemisphere and at our borders,” the order declared.
Throughout an occasion within the Oval Workplace, Trump mentioned the carnage fentanyl has precipitated in American households is worse than U.S. deaths in lots of wars.
“Two to 3 hundred thousand individuals die yearly, that we all know of, so we’re formally classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction,” Trump mentioned.
In truth, Trump’s numbers are wildly inflated. In accordance with a report from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, fentanyl killed roughly 48 thousand individuals in the united stateslast 12 months – a 27 % drop from the 12 months earlier than.
Consultants additionally say fentanyl could be tough to make use of as a weapon of mass destruction. There is just one documented incident worldwide, in 2002, the place the Russian authorities weaponized fentanyl in fuel type. There have been no circumstances reported within the U.S.
“It isn’t evident that there’s any foundation or want for, or internet profit to, formally designating fentanyl compounds as weapons of mass destruction,” concluded a 2019 report by the Heart for the Research of Weapons of Mass Destruction on the Nationwide Protection College.
Jeffrey Singer, a doctor and an skilled on avenue medicine on the Cato Institute, mentioned persons are dying from fentanyl within the U.S. due to widespread opioid habit, not as a result of cartels are intentionally weaponizing the drug.
“I do not know how one can equate smugglers assembly market demand and promoting one thing unlawful to somebody who needs to purchase it as an act of struggle,” Singer mentioned.
Most drug coverage consultants additionally say designating fentanyl as a WMD is not prone to reduce the provision of medication on American streets or sluggish US overdose deaths.
However this government order comes as a part of a wider militarization of the US struggle in opposition to avenue medicine that features army strikes on alleged drug-running boats and reclassifying cartels as terrorist organizations.
The U.S. army has carried out not less than 22 assaults on suspected drug boats within the Caribbean and japanese Pacific close to Venezuela to date this 12 months, leaving greater than 80 individuals useless, in line with an evaluation by NPR. Throughout a speech final week in Pennsylvania, President Trump mentioned the strikes are making Individuals safer.
“Each boat that will get hit, we save 25,000 American lives and while you view it that approach, you do not thoughts,” Trump mentioned.
However most consultants on prison cartels and lethal avenue medicine say army strikes on speedboats within the Caribbean and Jap Pacific can even have little or no affect on overdose deaths in the USA.
“Killing a drug mule has minimal impact on the move of medication, or the programs of prison organizations,” mentioned Vanda Felbab-Brown, an skilled on drug trafficking and habit on the Brookings Establishment.
In accordance with Felbab-Brown, the road drug fentanyl, which accounts for the overwhelming majority of U.S. drug deaths, is not produced in Venezuela, or smuggled in boats being focused.
“No matter actions are taken within the Caribbean don’t have any impact on fentanyl,” she mentioned. Cartels working within the Caribbean area are closely concerned in cocaine trafficking, Felbab-Brown mentioned, however a lot of that unlawful product goes to nations aside from the USA.
Others shared the view that the army strikes are prone to be ineffective and will even be counter-productive.
“All we’re doing is making the cartels give you stronger and highly effective types of medicine to smuggle,” mentioned Singer, on the Cato Institute.
His concern is that extra cartels will shift drug manufacturing away from cocaine – a dangerous however far much less deadly avenue drug – and can pivot to dealing deadlier artificial substances corresponding to fentanyl, methamphetamines and nitazenes that may be produced and smuggled extra simply.
“The added danger makes it mandatory for them to do this,” Singer mentioned.
The Trump administration’s nationwide safety technique, launched final month, elevated the combat in opposition to “narco-terrorists” to a key Protection Division precedence, calling for “the usage of deadly power to exchange the failed legislation enforcement-only technique.”
President Trump and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, seen right here in a cupboard assembly on December 2, have justified the army strikes on civilian vessels in worldwide waters as a part of the nationwide safety technique in opposition to “narco-terrorists.”
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Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
However many critics say the lethal strikes are based mostly on unverified, false, or wildly exaggerated claims. Final month, for instance, Trump justified the usage of army power in opposition to alleged traffickers by saying “300 million individuals died final 12 months from medicine, that is what’s unlawful.”
In truth, general drug overdose deaths within the U.S. have been dropping since not less than 2023 and accounted for about 76,000 fatalities in a 12-month interval in line with the most recent provisional information from the CDC.
Cocaine, the drug predominately trafficked by way of the Caribbean, accounted for roughly 22,000 U.S. deaths in 2024, in line with the most recent provisional CDC information, a pointy decline from the 12 months earlier than.
Felbab-Brown and Singer additionally imagine any deterrent impact of a “get powerful” method by the U.S. army shall be misplaced due to what they view as Trump’s sample of liberating and pardoning high-level drug traffickers, gang leaders, and corrupt officers linked to the cartels.
Individuals in a espresso store in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, watch a TikTok video of former President Juan Orlando Hernández publicly thanking U.S. President Trump for pardoning him of drug trafficking and weapons expenses.
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“Actions corresponding to pardoning the previous president of Honduras results in the query, what’s the level of the coverage?” mentioned Felbab-Brown.
Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted in federal court docket final 12 months in New York on drug trafficking and weapons expenses. Trump’s resolution to free him drew a pointy rebuke from Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who known as the transfer “surprising.”
“He was the chief of one of many largest prison enterprises that has ever been topic to a conviction in U.S. courts, and fewer than one 12 months into his sentence, President Trump is pardoning him, suggesting that President Trump cares nothing about narcotrafficking,” Kaine mentioned on CBS’ Face the Nation.
Since returning to the White Home, Trump has additionally pardoned the previous chief of a drug gang known as the Gangster Disciples and the creator of a prison web site known as Silk Street used to site visitors lethal medicine. His administration additionally returned key MS-13 drug gang informants to El Salvador.
Throughout his first time period, Trump additionally freed a high-level Mexican army official, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda from U.S. custody and dropped all prison expenses, regardless of proof of his shut ties to what was then certainly one of Mexico’s deadliest drug cartels.
“I discover it actually obscure. There isn’t any regular principled give attention to counter-narcotics coverage,” mentioned Felbab-Brown.
Requested by Politico concerning the resolution to pardon the previous Honduran president, regardless of proof he aided violent drug traffickers, Trump prompt with out offering proof that Hernández’s prosecution by the U.S. Justice Division was politically motivated.
“There are a lot of individuals combating for Honduras, excellent those who I do know, they usually assume he was handled horribly, they usually requested me to do it, and I mentioned I am going to do it,” Trump mentioned.
The Trump administration’s militarized method to drug interdiction does have assist from some conservative drug coverage consultants.
“We now want drastic motion,” mentioned Andrés MartÃnez-Fernández on the Heritage Basis.
He acknowledged drug deaths have ebbed from file ranges, however mentioned Trump’s resolution to designate cartels as terrorist organizations was lengthy overdue.
“Navy motion and these designations, past them being acceptable, are actually essential to confront these threats,” MartÃnez-Fernández instructed NPR.
MartÃnez-Fernández mentioned concern over Trump’s repeated pardons of high-level drug gang leaders is “honest, to a level,” however he believes the usage of focused pardons together with army and diplomatic strain might leverage higher cooperation in opposition to the drug cartels from governments within the Western Hemisphere.
Felbab-Brown, at Brookings, mentioned she too believes Trump’s method to the drug struggle has pressured some overseas leaders, together with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, to take extra aggressive motion in opposition to the cartels.
“The specter of tariffs in addition to the designation of the cartels as overseas terrorist organizations created important strain on the Sheinbaum administration to push forward on counter-narcotics cooperation,” Felbab-Brown mentioned, however added that the general affect on drug trafficking shall be minimal.
In an e mail to NPR final week, White Home spokeswoman Anna Kelly disputed the concept army strikes are ineffective at disrupting the move of medication into the U.S.
“The President is true – any boat bringing lethal poison to our shores has the potential to kill 25,000 Individuals or extra,” Kelly mentioned.
Throughout a cupboard assembly with Trump earlier this 12 months, Legal professional Common Pam Bondi argued that seizures of unlawful medicine by federal brokers in the course of the first hundred days of Trump’s second time period had already “saved, are you prepared for this media, 258 million American lives.”
Drug coverage researchers interviewed by NPR described that assertion by Bondi as wildly exaggerated.
Trump administration officers, nevertheless, say they’re satisfied the militarization of the drug struggle will ultimately result in fewer drug deaths.
“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow residents is the best and greatest use of our army,” Vice President JD Vance mentioned in a put up on social media.
