WASHINGTON – The cartels of the drug “They have a very strong control over Mexico” And “we cannot allow that to happen,” US President Donald Trump said Wednesday, signing a law that hardens fentanyl traffic sentences.
Washington accuses Mexican drug cartels, declared “terrorist” global organizations by Trump, of illegally manufacturing this synthetic opioid with substances from China.
Since he returned to the White House, Trump leads an aggressive diplomacy against the cartels and considers that Canada and Mexico do not do enough to fight the entry of fentanyl. He wielded it as an excuse to threaten them with tariffs.
In recent months he has said several times that drug traffickers dominate Mexico. In February he even accused the Mexican government of having “an intolerable alliance” with the cartels.
This Wednesday he insisted on his accusations, that Mexico’s leftist government denies.
Signs the “Halt Fentanyl Law”
The posters “have a very strong control over Mexico. We have to do something about it. We cannot allow that to happen,” Trump said during the signature of the “Halt Fentanyl Law”, approved by Republicans and Democrats.
With this legislation “we assault another defeat the wild drug traffickers, criminals and cartels,” Trump said.
“The Mexican authorities are terrified. They are terrified to go to their offices. They are terrified to go to work because the cartels have tremendous control over Mexico, the politicians and the people who are elected,” said the Republican President.
The new law provides for a minimum penalty of 10 years in prison for traffic exceeding 100 grams of fentanyl or an analogous substance.
“It means that anyone who is surprised by trafficking with these illicit poisons will be punished with a mandatory minimal penalty of ten years in prison,” said the White House tenant in an act in which he was accompanied by several relatives of victims of the fentanyl and other drugs.
Fentanyl caused almost 50,000 deaths due to overdose in 2024 in the United States, according to official sources.
“Illicit imitations of fentanyl”
The congressmen tried to fill Lagunas after realizing that the cartels change the composition of the fentanyl analogues as they are declared illegal.
Therefore, the law permanently classifies “illegal imitations of fentanyl” in list 1, composed of drugs that do not currently accepted medical use and with high abuse potential. They were already at this level since 2018, but temporarily.
Trump cited the carpentanil, “increasingly common,” he said. It is a synthetic opioid approximately 10,000 times more powerful than morphine and 100 times more than fentanyl, which can be lethal in dose of 2 milligrams.
The opioid epidemic in the United States dates back to the 1990s, when pharmaceutical companies massively marketed analgesics with recipe.
More than one million Americans have died from drug overdose during the last two decades.
