“So you understand, vast amounts of fentanyl have poured into our country from Mexico, and as you know, also from China, where it goes to Mexico and goes to Canada,” he said.
China also is due to be hit with a new 10% tariff for being the source of much of the fentanyl that killed at least 279,000 Americans over the past four years, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data last updated in September.
Fentanyl wiped out nearly 0.1% of America’s population over that period by being sprinkled into a wide range of illegal drugs and counterfeit prescriptions, often killing unwitting and disproportionately young users.
Although Trump specified fentanyl as the reason for proceeding with tariffs against Canada and Mexico, he also has described the measures as beneficial to American businesses.
“We don’t need the products that they have,” the president said Jan. 30 — adding a day later: “There could be some temporary short-term disruption, and people will understand that.”
Fentanyl is smuggled into the US across land borders, where it’s often intercepted, and through the international mail and shipping systems.
The monthly number of US deaths has been declining since Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to do more to restrict exports at a November 2023 summit with then-President Joe Biden, but the compound still killed more than 55,000 Americans in the most recent full year of CDC data — equivalent roughly to the number of US deaths in the Vietnam War.
The Mexico-Canada tariffs are being levied under the president’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to target drug traffickers bringing fentanyl into the US.
The powerful synthetic opioid was the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45, peaking with an estimated 76,282 deaths in 2023, according to CDC data.
That grim milestone coincided that year with the largest-ever number of migrant border crossings into the country, US Customs and Border Protection statistics show, with nearly 250,000 apprehended trying to enter in December 2023 alone.
In fiscal year 2024, border agents seized more than 21,000 pounds of fentanyl coming from Mexico — enough to kill 4.8 billion people — while just 43 pounds were impounded coming from Canada.
