[War & Business] The Drug That Became Trump's Tariff War Justification: "Fentanyl"

Tariffs Imposed on China, Canada, and Mexico Starting on the 4th
Fentanyl Distribution Crackdown Cited as Justification... "A New Opium War"

On the 1st (local time), U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing additional tariffs of 25% on Canada and Mexico, and 10% on China. Photo by UPI and Yonhap News.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced an executive order imposing additional tariffs of 25% on Canada and Mexico, and 10% on China. This marked the opening salvo of the tariff war he had promised even before taking office. South Korea is not a safe zone either.

While there are concerns that this decision could lead to a global trade contraction, causing the New York Stock Exchange to plunge, President Trump expressed a strong determination to impose tariffs, stating it is to protect the United States. Immediately after signing the executive order, he posted on the social networking service (SNS) he founded, Truth Social, saying, "This executive order was made under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) because illegal immigrants and deadly drugs including fentanyl pose a serious threat to our citizens," and emphasized, "We must protect Americans, and ensuring the safety of all Americans is my duty as president."

In particular, the drug "fentanyl" mentioned in his remarks served as a key justification for this tariff war. Originally, fentanyl was developed in 1959 by Paul Janssen, a renowned Belgian physician and chemist, as an anesthetic for critical surgeries. It led to advances in surgical fields with its pain-relieving effect being 100 times stronger than morphine and 50 times stronger than heroin, but since the 2000s, it has spread into the global drug market, producing numerous addicts.

The distribution market for fentanyl starts in China and connects to the United States via Mexico and Canada. In China, the main raw materials for fentanyl, called "precursors," are produced and then exported to third countries such as Mexico and Canada, where they are made into finished fentanyl products and smuggled into the U.S. through border areas.

The Chinese government strictly banned the production and distribution of finished fentanyl products domestically but did not regulate the export of precursors. Since fentanyl precursors are used as raw materials for civilian anesthetics and painkillers, they were mainly chemical factory exports supplied to pharmaceutical companies. The problem is that Chinese criminal organizations like the Triads collaborated with drug trafficking groups in Mexico and Latin America to make huge profits from fentanyl exports.

In the United States, the final consumer of fentanyl, the number of people addicted to fentanyl smuggled across the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada has been increasing. The number of drug overdose deaths, which was around 20,000 in 2001, surged to over 100,000 in 2021, with most being fentanyl addicts. This led to accusations within and outside U.S. politics that China is deliberately instigating a 21st-century Opium War.

In the U.S., conspiracy theories emerged claiming that the Chinese government is intentionally weakening the U.S. by not blocking the export of fentanyl precursors, and that the fentanyl cartels linked to Latin American criminal organizations are maintained under the protection of the Chinese government. President Trump’s use of fentanyl as a justification for additional tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico is based on these conspiracy theories.

Ultimately, this fentanyl controversy and the tariff war leveraged on it serve as a milestone indicating the direction of the Trump administration’s future foreign policy. Not only China, the party involved in the drug conflict, but also Canada and Mexico, identified as intermediate distribution points, have become victims of tariff barriers despite being allies. Since South Korea is known as an intermediate transit point for drugs from China and North Korea, it is a matter that could happen at any time, making it necessary to prepare a meticulous response.