President Donald Trump's designation last week of fentanyl as a "weapon of mass destruction" gives the Drug Enforcement Administration more tools to combat the drug, agency Administrator Terry Cole said.
"It's opening up the aperture to treat this really, you know, continuous poison that's coming to the United States as a weapon of mass destruction," Cole said.
Trump's order instructs "the attorney general, the State Department, the Department of War," and others to work together to combat the poison "coming to our country," he added.
The designation — unprecedented for a narcotic — signals Trump's intent to treat fentanyl not merely as a public health crisis but as a national security threat on a par with chemical warfare.
The classification empowers the Pentagon to assist law enforcement and allows intelligence agencies to deploy tools normally reserved for countering weapons proliferation against drug traffickers.
"We're formally classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, which is what it is," Trump said at a White House event honoring service members tasked with helping to police the U.S. southern border with Mexico.
"They're trying to drug out our country."
Trump's order said, "Illicit fentanyl is closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic."
Trump's designation of drug cartels this year as foreign terrorist organizations has opened the door to military action against them.
According to the Trump administration, the military has carried out 28 known strikes in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean since early September, killing at least 104 people.
Trump has repeatedly threatened strikes on land in Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico to battle drug trafficking.
In a sweeping strategy document published last week, Trump said his administration's foreign policy focus would be on reasserting U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
Cole said Mexican drug cartels "never sleep" and that defending Americans from fentanyl is a matter of national security.
"Right now, they are plotting, they are manufacturing, they are getting ready to distribute and transport thousands of pounds of methamphetamine, cocaine, and fentanyl to the United States to poison our citizens," he said.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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