Trump has declared fentanyl a "weapon of mass destruction," dramatically escalating the federal response to the synthetic opioid crisis and granting broader powers to the military and intelligence agencies to target drug traffickers.
Trump signed an executive order on Monday classifying fentanyl as a national security threat comparable to chemical weapons, allowing the Pentagon to support law enforcement operations and enabling intelligence agencies to use counter-proliferation tools against trafficking networks.
"We're formally classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction," Trump said at a White House event. "They're trying to drug out our country."
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This builds on Trump's earlier designation of major drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and follows more than 20 United States strikes since September against suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, operations that have killed over 80 people.
Legal experts have questioned the legality of the strikes, noting that the administration has provided little public evidence the targeted vessels were carrying drugs or that lethal force was necessary instead of seizures and arrests.
Trump has also threatened potential military action on land in Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico as part of a broader strategy to reassert United States dominance in the Western Hemisphere. Mexico remains the primary source of fentanyl entering the United States, while many precursor chemicals originate in China.