US President Donald Trump on Monday (local time) signed an Executive Order officially designating illicit fentanyl and its core precursor chemicals as weapons of mass destruction (WMD), marking a significant escalation in the federal government’s efforts to tackle the opioid crisis and target cartels and foreign networks responsible for the drug trade.

According to a White House Fact Sheet, the Executive Order directs the US Attorney General to immediately pursue criminal charges, sentencing enhancements, and variances in fentanyl trafficking cases. It also instructs the Secretaries of State and the Treasury to take action against assets and financial institutions linked to the manufacture, distribution, and sale of illicit fentanyl.

The Order further calls on the US Secretary of War and the Attorney General to evaluate whether enhanced national security resources should be allocated to the Department of Justice in emergencies involving fentanyl as a WMD.

The Secretary of War, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, is tasked with updating chemical incident response directives to address the fentanyl threat. Meanwhile, Homeland Security will work to identify fentanyl smuggling networks using WMD and nonproliferation intelligence.

In the accompanying factsheet, Trump described illicit fentanyl as “closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic,” emphasizing that just two milligrams—the equivalent of 10–15 grains of table salt—can be lethal.

He also highlighted how profits from fentanyl are used by cartels and foreign terrorist organizations to fund assassinations, terrorism, and insurgencies, warning of the potential for concentrated, large-scale attacks on the United States.

By designating fentanyl as a WMD, Trump stated that the federal government can now deploy its full resources in a coordinated effort to dismantle cartels, eradicate the drug from American streets, and protect families.

This measure follows a series of broader actions by Trump to combat drug trafficking, including declaring a national emergency at the southern border, labeling eight cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists, imposing tariffs on countries that fail to curb drug flows, authorizing military strikes to disrupt narcotics operations, and signing the HALT Fentanyl Act to permanently classify fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I drugs.

Source: ANI