The label is the latest example of President Trump using military and symbolic language to justify U.S. operations against drug smuggling.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Donald Trump announced he will sign an executive order deeming fentanyl and its core precursors “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD), the latest example of his administration using increasingly militarized language to justify operations against drug cartels and smugglers.
Monday’s announcement came after the Trump administration repeatedly referred to drug smugglers as “narco-terrorists” and designated Latin American cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
The administration has repeatedly maintained that international drug smuggling groups are not profit-seeking criminal networks, but organizations aimed at destabilizing the United States.
“There is no question that our adversaries are trafficking fentanyl into the United States, in part because they want to kill Americans,” President Trump said Monday at a White House event.
“That’s why today, I’m taking another step to protect Americans from the deadly fentanyl scourge flooding our nation.”
“With this historic executive order that I am signing today, we will officially classify fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.”
It was not immediately clear whether the label would have any practical impact or how it would affect legally purchased fentanyl for medical use.
The executive order simply called on executive branch heads to take a series of actions to “eliminate the threat of illicit fentanyl and its core precursor chemicals to the United States.”
Current U.S. law (which cannot be changed unilaterally by the president) defines weapons of mass destruction as “weapons designed or intended to cause death or serious injury through the release, dissemination, or impact of a poisonous or poisonous chemical, or its precursors.”
This definition includes “any weapon containing a biological agent, toxin, or vector” as well as “any weapon designed to emit levels of radiation or radioactivity dangerous to human life.”
Weapons of mass destruction are also defined as any “destructive device,” including conventional bombs, missiles, grenades, or items that can be converted to fire projectiles.
growing threat
The Trump administration has used efforts to ease fentanyl smuggling as an excuse to raise tariffs on Mexico and China.
The regime has also made extensive use of its anti-drug campaign to justify attacks on alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, which rights groups say may amount to extrajudicial killings, and to justify a surge in military assets off the coast of Venezuela.
President Trump has repeatedly threatened to launch ground attacks on Venezuelan territory to combat drug smuggling.
He repeated his threat on Monday. “We’re going to start attacking them on land. Frankly, it’s much easier,” he said.
Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro has claimed that the US pressure campaign is aimed at overthrowing the government.
Despite the heightened rhetoric against Venezuela, regional experts note that the country and South America are not known as hubs for fentanyl production or export.
“To be clear, fentanyl is not coming from Venezuela or anywhere else in South America,” John Walsh, director of drug policy and the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), said at a briefing with experts earlier this month.
Some critics liken President Trump’s pressure campaign on Venezuela to the escalation of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was premised on the mistaken discovery that Saddam Hussein’s regime was developing weapons of mass destruction.
