Trump Designates Fentanyl as Weapon of Mass Destruction

President Donald Trump signed an executive order marking fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction on Monday, escalating his war against drug trafficking during his second administration.

The order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue criminal charges, sentencing enhancements, and sentencing variances in fentanyl trafficking cases, according to a White House fact sheet. It also directs Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to take actions against financial institutions involved in manufacturing or distributing the illegal sale of fentanyl.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth will work with Bondi and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to provide enhanced national security resources and update their chemical incident response to include the fentanyl threat.

Trump claimed that drug traffickers have been killing anywhere between 200,000 and 300,000 Americans per year over the past five or six years, before awarding a newly formed Mexican Border Defense Medal to 13 military members for their efforts to secure the U.S. southern border.

The president touted his efforts to slash the amount of fentanyl pouring into the U.S., including browbeating China, Mexico, and Canada into decreasing the amount of fentanyl being smuggled across the border.

The president also claimed that his administration completed the largest fentanyl bust in the nation’s history, “seizing 3 million fentanyl pills all at one time.”