Ventanil is a major threat to the United States, according to the Trump administration: NPR

Fintanel gangs and international drug gangs responsible for smuggling fatal drug arrangement among the most important threats of American national security. This is according to a evaluation he delivered on Tuesday by senior Trump administration officials for members of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“The Kartitat was largely responsible for the death of more than 54,000 American citizens of the artificial opioids” during the 12 -month period that ended in October 2024, the director of National Intelligence Toulsi Gabbard said. During opening notes.

American intelligence community Annual threat assessment For the year 2025, which was also released on Tuesday, a few different, with 52,000 deaths in the United States can be linked to the activity of Cartel. NPR could not independently verify any shape.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, A total of about 84,000 people died in the United States During this period of time of all excessive doses associated with fentanel, metamvitamins and other street medications.

During a session on Tuesday, Senator Tom Couton, who heads the Intelligence Committee, indicated that Fintanel has risen by the Trump administration as a major concern-before other national security threats from countries such as Iran, North Korea and Russia.

“For the first time, the evaluation of the annual threats lists the illegal foreign actors in drugs as the first threat to our country,” said Couton. [industrial chemicals] Produced in China. ”

The Trump team’s effort has often overshadowed the Fintanel during Tuesday’s session by a growing scandal on the use of a civil correspondence application called Signal by administration officials planning a bombing mission in Yemen.

From the public health crisis to the threat of national security

Fintanel first began spreading as a street in the United States in 2012, which resulted in the displacement of heroin pain and prescribed prescriptions as the most dangerous opium sold by criminal gangs. During the first Trump administration, deaths erupted significantly by fentanel, more than 30 percent rose in 2020 alone.

The massacre caused by opioids decreased in recent years, as fatal doses decreased by more than 26 percent of the peak in 2023 to October of last year, according to the latest data of the Disease Control Center. The Biden Administration has focused a lot of its response to the crisis on public health measures.

But President Donald Trump has linked tariff policies against Canada, China and Mexico with his concerns about trafficking in Fentane. Trump inserted the cartals as terrorist organizations For the first time in an executive order. He also called for the death penalty for drug traffickers.

Some Republican lawmakers Including MP Greg Stopy from Florida The United States wants to launch military operations targeting drug organizations inside Mexico and other places.

During a session on Tuesday, Senator Couton, director of the CIA John Ratcliffe, asked whether the Chinese government is doing enough to stop exports of chemicals related to fentanel used by drug gangs.

“No, there is nothing to prevent China, the People’s Republic of China, from eliminating the jungle sects.”

He said that companies with relationships with the Communist Party of China are still playing an important role in the production of illegal fentanel.

“There are more than six hundred companies related to the PRC program that produces these chemicals in the sects in an industry that produces more than $ 1.5 trillion [in revenue]Ratcliffe said.

Biden administration officials said last year that they are making great progress in building international progress with China and Mexico aimed at disrupting the Ventanil supply chain and there is evidence of the smuggling of fentianil and the excessive deaths of the dose decreased.

But Ratcliffe described Chinese cooperation in combating drug trafficking as “intermittent in nature and limited in nature.”

Narcotics policy experts generally recognize dignities and other drug gangs that have contributed to a bloody dose in the history of the United States, where companies in China and gangs in Mexico play an important role.

But many of these experts Skeptical about the Trump administration’s move to describe criminal smuggling in terms of military, terrorist or national security.

“They are looking at drug smuggling as if it were in a traditional way of war -like way,” said Regeina Label, a drug policy expert at George Town, who served as the temporary director of the Biden office.

“You cannot bomb [drug gangs] From existence. It is a complicated type more complicated than voltage. “

She and others said an interview with NPR that they are concerned that the Trump administration’s efforts could cause China, in particular, to expand the scope of anti -drug cooperation.

Vanda Felbab-BROWN, a drug policy expert at the Brookegs Foundation, noted that the Trump administration faces pressure to take the additional step of inserting fentanel as a weapon for comprehensive destruction, which will put it in the same legal category as nuclear and biological weapons.

“If the Trump administration tries to accuse China of allowing WMD terrorism, or WMD terrorism, this would strengthen the relationship at risk,” said Felpab Brown.

Felpab Brown said that the rapid moves of the Trump team to photograph Ventanil as a threat to national security or terrorism could “create more political atmosphere if not legal for US military air strikes in Mexico.”