Candidates propose extreme measures in war on fentanyl
MIAMI — Ron DeSantis said he wants suspected drug smugglers at the U.S.-Mexico border to be shot dead. Nikki Haley has promised to send American special forces into Mexico. Vivek Ramaswamy has accused Mexico’s leader of treating drug cartels as his “sugar daddy” and said that if he is elected president, “there will be a new daddy in town.”
Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner for the 2024 nomination and long the person who has shaped his party’s rhetoric on the border, has often blamed Mexico for problems in the United States and has promised new uses of military force and covert action if he returns to the White House.
Many of the GOP presidential candidates say they would carry out potential acts of war against Mexico in response to the trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. More than 75,000 people in the U.S. died last year from overdoses of synthetic opioids, an annual figure more than 20 times higher than a decade ago.
The candidates’ antagonism toward Mexico is welcomed by some families who have lost loved ones to fentanyl and have argued that Washington has not done enough to address the worst drug crisis in U.S. history. But analysts and nonpartisan experts warn that military force is not the answer and instead fuels the racism and xenophobia that undermine efforts to stop drug trafficking.
“You’ve got politicking on this side. And then on the Mexican side of the border, you’ve got a president who is turning a blind eye to what’s going on in Mexico and who has completely gutted bilateral collaboration with the United States,” said Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2007 to 2013. “That’s a very combustible mixture.”
Andrea Thomas’ daughter died at age 32 after taking half of a counterfeit pill laced with fentanyl that looked like her prescription pills for abdominal pain. Thomas started the foundation Voices for Awareness in Grand Junction, Colorado, to raise the alarm about fentanyl.
Thomas said people she knows are interested in what the candidates are proposing and feel that President Joe Biden’s administration has not properly responded to the crisis. In a letter to the presidential candidates, Thomas and an assembly of other groups urge the politicians to do “all that can be done” to stop the manufacturing and smuggling of the drug.
“This drug is like no drug we have ever seen before,” she said. “We need some strong measures. We have no more time to waste.”
Democrats also face immense political pressure on border issues heading into next year’s election. The White House has funded national programs to reduce fentanyl overdoses and sanctioned Chinese companies blamed for importing the chemicals used to make the drug.
In a statement Sunday, the White House said the administration imposed targeted sanctions as recently as last week and blamed Republicans in Congress for blocking a request for an additional $800 million to fight fentanyl trafficking, which includes money for law enforcement.
Mexico has failed to address its problem with fentanyl production and trafficking. Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador repeatedly denies his country is producing the synthetic opioid despite enormous evidence to the contrary.
Border agents seized nearly 13 tons of fentanyl at the U.S.-Mexico border between September 2022 and August, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
At the second GOP primary debate late last month, candidates reiterated that they would use military forces to go after drug gangs in Mexico.
“As commander in chief, I’m going to use the U.S. military to go after the Mexican drug cartels,” said DeSantis, the Florida governor. He has promised
that people suspected of smuggling drugs across the southern border would end up “stone cold dead.” That raises the prospect of border agents being authorized to shoot people on sight before any investigation into whether those people were carrying drugs.
U.S. government data undercuts the claim that people seeking asylum and other border crossers are responsible for drug trafficking. About 90% of fentanyl seizures were made at official land crossings, not between crossings where people entered illegally. At a hearing in July, James Mandryck, a CBP deputy assistant commissioner, said 73% of fentanyl seizures at the border since the previous October were smuggling attempts carried out by U.S. citizens, with the rest being
done by Mexican citizens.
A study published last year from U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies called Mexico the “principal source” of fentanyl, with cartels manufacturing the drug using precursor chemicals largely smuggled from China. But it noted that the crisis could not be resolved without curbing addiction in the U.S. that creates overwhelming demand for illegal opioids.
“The supply of illicit fentanyl cannot be permanently stopped through enforcement alone — only temporarily disrupted before another cartel, trafficking method, or analogue steps in to fill the market that addiction creates,” said the report from the U.S. Commission on Combating Synthetic Opioid Trafficking.