Trump says new tariffs with lower fentanyl deaths, however overdoses are already plummeting : NPR

President Donald Trump says rampant drug smuggling and overdose deaths are largely the fault of three international locations – Canada, China and Mexico – and he says robust tariffs are the reply. However Canada performs nearly no function within the U.S. overdose disaster and drug deaths have been plummeting.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Photos/Getty Photos North America

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Andrew Harnik/Getty Photos/Getty Photos North America

President Donald Trump confirmed Thursday that new 25 p.c tariffs will go into impact March 4th towards two of the U.S.’s largest buying and selling companions. Trump additionally threatened so as to add a further 10 p.c tariff on Chinese language items and companies on the identical date.

Writing on Reality Social, Trump as soon as once more cited avenue medication “pouring into our nation from Mexico and Canada at very excessive and unacceptable ranges” as a major purpose for the coverage.

However federal information from U.S. Customs and Border Safety present Canada performs nearly no function within the smuggling of fentanyl or different lethal avenue medication into the U.S. Regardless of that reality, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised in December to step up efforts to safe the northern border.

“By deploying new helicopters, drones, and surveillance instruments. By including new scanners and sniffer canine groups to cease and seize fentanyl. By cracking down on the cash laundering that is funding cross-border crime,” Trudeau mentioned, detailing new coverage initiatives in a put up on social media.

Requested on Thursday about information displaying Canada is not a major participant within the U.S. habit disaster, Trump argued that medication are coming throughout the northern border with out being detected.

“They need to be apprehending rather more, trigger rather a lot comes via Canada and as Mexico will get stronger when it comes to the border it comes via Canada,” Trump mentioned, with out providing proof to again his declare.

In the meantime, fentanyl smuggling throughout the southern border from Mexico has plunged during the last yr with seizures in January 2025 down 50 p.c in contrast with a yr earlier. Avenue drug consultants say in lots of components of the U.S., the provision and efficiency of fentanyl has dropped considerably.

The variety of whole overdose deaths from avenue medication has additionally fallen at an unprecedented tempo, down by almost 1 / 4 during the last yr.

Many states have seen a decline in deadly overdoses of between 30 and 50 p.c, in accordance with provisional information from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention

“It’s totally, very thrilling to see,” mentioned Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the U.S. authorities’s Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse, talking final week concerning the drop in drug deaths.

She famous that the decline in deaths linked to fentanyl, versus different avenue medication, is even larger. “From fentanyl it is a 30.6 p.c [drop] in a single yr, that is an enormous discount,” she mentioned.

Regardless of speedy enhancements in a public well being disaster that has killed a whole lot of 1000’s of People, avenue medication stay a political flashpoint.

“The households of the victims are devastated and, in lots of cases, just about destroyed,” Trump mentioned in his put up on social media. “We can not permit this scourge to proceed to hurt the USA.”

Along with 25 p.c tariffs on items and companies from Canada and Mexico, Trump threatened China will face a further 10 p.c tariff on the identical date. China is a serious supply of commercial chemical substances utilized by drug gangs to provide fentanyl, although the authorities of China has cracked down on suppliers during the last yr.

Whereas pointing to drug smuggling as a rationale for tariffs, Trump has additionally pardoned people who confronted federal drug costs, together with Ross Ulbricht, creator of a darkish net web market known as Silk Street.

Ulbricht was convicted of distributing narcotics, amongst different costs, and sentenced to life in jail in 2015.

Trump’s pardon of January 6 riot defendants has additionally been prolonged by the U.S. Justice Division to embrace people dealing with drug-related costs.