Donald Trumpâs policies could leave the US more vulnerable to dangerous synthetic drug trafficking from abroad, even as the administration has vowed to stop fentanyl from entering the country, former government officials say.
This week, Trump imposed tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, ostensibly as a tactic to stem the flow of illicit drugs into the US.
Jim Crotty, the former Drug Enforcement Administration deputy chief of staff, called the approach âcoerciveâ and said it has the potential to backfire. Federal funding cuts could also leave US borders more insecure, according to Enrique Roig, a former Department of State official who oversaw Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) portfolios and who has also worked with USAid.
US overdose deaths began to decrease significantly for the first time in 2023, after rising for decades. But Crotty notes this progress is fragile.
âWeâre seeing this decrease in overdose deaths and everyoneâs still trying to suss out exactly why. I donât think now is the time that we want to stop any of those existing efforts because we know that at least some, or a combination of them, have been working,â Crotty said.
Roig agreed: âAll this has to be working together in concert.â
Federal funding cuts could put the US behind when it comes to drug detection technology. The global drug supply has increasingly shifted towards highly potent synthetic substances such as fentanyl and newly emerging nitazenes. Often, these drugs arrive in the US in the form of powders or precursor chemicals that take up minimal space, and are difficult to detect by odor.
Roig says advanced drug detection technology is therefore vital, but Trumpâs federal funding and staff cuts mean less money for the latest technology and equipment, and fewer people to install it.
Ram Ben Tzion, the CEO of Publican, which provides drug detection technology to government agencies outside the US, says cutting-edge methods detect suspicious shipments even before they get to the border. Publican uses large language models to flag shipments that âdonât make senseâ and are likely to contain illicit substances. For example, his company once found fentanyl precursors in a shipment to a residential address in California. The shipment claimed to contain fashion items, but came from a Chinese construction company.
Similarly, the UN Container Control Programme, which has historically received state department funding, helps authorities flag suspicious shipments before they reach their destination. This program has helped authorities around the world seize hundreds of tonnes of illicit drugs each year. Roig says federal funding cuts have stalled CCPâs implementation in Mexico, even though itâs a primary security target for Trump.
Some of Trumpâs measures are more showy than they are constructive, Crotty and Roig said. The designation of certain cartels as terrorist organizations âdoesnât do much of anythingâ.
Itâs symbolic, says Crotty, given that they were already designated transnational criminal organizations. Other measures are a harmful waste of money, according to Roig. Just this week, for instance, the administration suspended the use of military planes to deport immigrants, including those accused of drug related crimes, due to the extravagant cost.
Roig says this measure was completely unnecessary, as âIce already has its own fleet of airplanesâ that are much cheaper.
Crotty is concerned the aggression could backfire.
âThe Mexican people are protective of their culture and their sovereignty. If you push them too hard, could it do more harm than good?â he said.
Mexico sent 10,000 troops to its US border to cooperate with Trumpâs demands, but Crotty says âwhile in a vacuum that sounds like a whole lotâ, Mexicoâs border is vast, and drugs are often transported in âminute quantitiesâ. So, the US needs Mexicoâs cooperation when it comes to intelligence â otherwise âyouâre not going to find the proverbial needle in the haystackâ, Crotty said.
Roig said that âitâs important that we do this in cooperation with Mexico and not alienate them,â adding that Trumpâs aggressive stance toward China could harm the Biden administrationâs progress negotiating with the Chinese government to cooperate on counternarcotics initiatives.
Massive USAid cuts also threaten programs intended to curb the âroot causesâ of the drug trade, says Roig. Some USAid-funded programs simultaneously tackled drug smuggling and another one of Trumpâs key issues, migration â as cartels that traffic drugs also traffic people.
When Roig worked with USAid, he says he spent a lot of time on âcommunity violence prevention effortsâ, including programs to keep young people from joining international crime organizations and cartels. (Notably, the Trump administration has purged many websites describing USAid programs.)
If the drug supply does increase, it could mean US overdoses begin to rise again as well. But Crotty is worried we wonât even know if that happens. Layoffs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could leave fewer people to track overdose deaths, and Trumpâs attack on government data sharing could keep everyone in the dark.
ââââCDC maintains the overdose death dashboard. A lot of that stuff is data driven. Are they still going to have access to the data?â he said.
The Guardian contacted INL and UNODC for comment.