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The Next Republican President Needs a Plan to Fight Fentanyl and Opioids

POW/MIA Flag Flies Atop the White House
A POW/MIA flag flies atop the White House Friday, Nov. 8, 2019, a day after President Donald J. Trump signed S. 693 the National POW/MIA Flag Act Thursday, Nov. 7, 2019, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)

The United States is experiencing one of the greatest domestic national security tragedies in a generation. Without intervention, fatalities to American’s and destruction within communities across all 50 states will continue ascending at a preventable and unprecedented rate. For the first time in history, U.S. overdose deaths surpassed 100,000 annually in 2021, an increase of nearly 15% from 2020. The root cause for this increase stems from the trafficking of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids into the U.S., creating a devastating societal and economic impact nationwide. 

The methods by which fentanyl is manufactured and then trafficked into the U.S. should worry all Americans. Foreign state-sponsored adversaries and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) use drug trafficking as a coordinated societal attack on our socioeconomic structure. Illicit networks within China and Mexico are aligned and are the most prominent source of these drugs entering our communities. Most precursor chemicals used in making the fentanyl that ends up in the U.S. are produced in China and shipped across the Pacific to cartels in Mexico – most notably, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel

Those chemicals are then used to manufacture the finished product  in labs. From there, the drugs are smuggled in various ways across the border into the U.S. We face a situation as a nation where networks in our greatest geopolitical rival, the People’s Republic of China, are working with cartels in a bordering nation to deliver illicit narcotics 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine to our communities. If action is not taken by policymakers and law enforcement, two of the biggest adversaries we face will continue to increase the production and distribution of products that now kill over 100,000 Americans annually.

Former President Donald Trump was the only U.S. president who understood while he was in office the immediate and continued need to implement policies both targeted and sweeping to resolve these issues, as displayed by The President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and Opioid Abuse in 2017, his Initiative to Stop Opioid Abuse and Reduce Drug Supply and Demand in 2018, and his administration’s 2019 National Drug Control Strategy, which were among many other official policy and law enforcement actions rooted in ending this crisis. Unfortunately, over the past year and a half, many of the critical policies and law enforcement directives in place to halt the flow of drugs over our borders have been disbanded or deprioritized by the Biden administration. 

To combat this overwhelming domestic and national security tragedy, the next Republican president needs a comprehensive national counternarcotics and drug trafficking strategy. Here are the 4 pillars this should be based upon:

First, the U.S. must build additional Coast Guard cutters and Navy destroyers to conduct enhanced counternarcotics operations in the Eastern Pacific and the Caribbean Sea. These operations, in collaboration with regional partners, provide increased surveillance in the Western Hemisphere, leading to the disruption and seizure of illicit drugs targeting our shores. Increasing counternarcotics operations is a needed step toward degrading the overall capabilities and supply chains of drug trafficking organizations.

Second, the U.S.-Mexico border must be secured. An open southern border is an invitation for cartels to increase their profits by ramping up production and distribution of drugs into our country. Customs and Border Protection reported seizing 2,071 pounds of fentanyl coming from Mexico in July alone, an increase of over 200% from June. The amount of fentanyl seized in this single month equates to enough doses to kill every American. Migrants aiming to cross into the U.S. illegally must understand they will be turned away at ports of entry rather than being processed and released into our country as they await a court hearing at which the majority will not appear. It is reported that the Biden administration has released nearly 1.05 million southwest border migrants into the United States since taking office. U.S. Border Patrol agents need to be able to go back to doing their intended job of securing our border, rather than being used as processing administrators for tens of thousands of migrants. 

Third, there needs to be a comprehensive strategy focused on fentanyl and its analogs. Synthetic opioid overdoses accounted for approximately 70% of the more than 107,000 Americans who died from drug overdoses in 2021, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Synthetic drugs are the future of drug trafficking: They are relatively cheap and easy to produce compared to plant-based drugs such as heroin and cocaine, which need to be grown and cultivated on larger amounts of land in a favorable climate. A multi-pronged strategy must be put in place to target all stages of the process from the manufacturing, distribution, and consumption of fentanyl. 

Fourth, China should not be allowed to purchase agricultural land in the United States. By the start of 2020, Chinese nationals controlled over 192,000 acres of land in the U.S., worth $1.9 billion, which poses a direct threat to our national and economic security. These allow the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) undue leverage over the U.S. because under law, Chinese businesses are required to surrender to the CCP’s demands. The locations around the U.S. where Chinese nationals decide to purchase land are not coincidental, they are highly strategic. Large plots of land under Chinese ownership are near U.S. military bases or along the southern border, and more than half of the total land owned is agricultural. A former soldier in the Chinese army with close ties to the CCP recently purchased 130,000 acres surrounding Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, less than ten miles from a border crossing where over half a million dollars in fentanyl was seized in a single day this April. 

Another concern is the increased presence of illegally cultivated marijuana grow farms tied to Chinese ownership that have been uncovered across multiple states. In Oklahoma, tens of thousands of acres have been purchased by Chinese nationals and in February, several were arrested in the largest single-day drug bust in the state’s history. The director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics reported that the bust consisted of over 500 structures on 80 acres and was part of a large drug trafficking organization. Allowing this trend to continue provides China and the associated TCOs a blueprint for the production and distribution of other illicit narcotics, such as fentanyl, on U.S. soil without facing the risk of trafficking the finished product over the southern border. America’s greatest adversary should not have the ability to use our homeland for their nefarious purposes.

America’s most valuable resource is her people. When foreign adversaries actively seek to undermine the health and security of that most valuable resource for their own gain, elected officials in the U.S. must implement and enforce effective policies defending those they swore an oath to protect. The epidemic of opioid addiction in our country is a national security tragedy that the CCP and TCOs are fueling, and the next Republican president needs a comprehensive strategy in place to defend our borders and communities against these threats.

Expert Biography: James B. Skinner is the Chief of Staff at American Global Strategies LLC, where he provides support to the firm’s leadership and day-to-day execution of key operations. Prior to joining American Global Strategies LLC, Skinner served as Special Assistant to the United States National Security Advisor, Ambassador Robert C. O’Brien. In this capacity, Skinner ensured O’Brien’s preparedness for daily engagements with domestic and foreign counterparts, including providing direct operational and logistic support on Presidential Missions to the Middle East, Asia, Europe, South America, the Indo-Pacific, and across the United States.

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James B. Skinner is the Chief of Staff at American Global Strategies LLC, where he provides support to the firm’s leadership and day-to-day execution of key operations.

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