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WHY TRUMP’S TARIFFS CAN’T SOLVE AMERICA’S FENTANYL CRISIS  
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Rodney Coates
January 27, 2025
The Conversation
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_ Treatment works and bans don’t. _

Small but powerful – and potentially deadly., Don Emmert/AFP via
Getty Images

 

Americans consume more illicit drugs
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per capita than anyone else in the world; about 6% of the U.S.
population
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uses them regularly.

One such drug, fentanyl – a synthetic opioid that’s 50 to 100
times more potent than morphine
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leading reason U.S. overdose deaths have surged
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in recent years. While the rate of fentanyl overdose deaths has dipped
a bit recently
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it’s still vastly higher than it was just five years ago.

Ending the fentanyl crisis won’t be easy. The U.S. has an addiction
problem that spans decades – long predating the rise of fentanyl –
and countless attempts to regulate
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done little to reduce drug consumption. Meanwhile, the opioid crisis
alone costs Americans tens of billions of dollars
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each year.

With past policies having failed to curb fentanyl deaths, President
Donald Trump is turning to another tool to fight America’s drug
problem: trade policy.

During his presidential campaign, Trump pledged to impose tariffs on
Canada
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and Mexico
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if they didn’t halt the flow of drugs across U.S. borders, and on
China if it didn’t do more to crack down
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on the production of chemicals used to make fentanyl. Trump reiterated
his plan on his first day back in office
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and on Feb. 1, he made good on that threat, imposing tariffs on all
three counties
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and citing fentanyl
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as a key reason.

Speaking as a professor who studies social policy
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fentanyl and the proposed import taxes represent significant threats
to the U.S. While the human toll of fentanyl is undeniable, the real
question is whether tariffs will work – or worsen what’s already a
crisis.

Fentanyl: The ‘single greatest challenge’

In 2021, more than 107,000 Americans
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died from overdoses – the most ever recorded – and nearly seven
out of 10 deaths involved fentanyl or similar synthetic opioids. In
2022, fentanyl was killing an average of 200 people each day. And
while fentanyl deaths declined slightly
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in 2023, nearly 75,000 Americans still died from synthetic opioids
that year. In March of that year – the most recent for which
full-year data on overdose deaths is available – the then-secretary
of homeland security declared fentanyl to be “the single greatest
challenge we face as a country
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But history shows that government efforts to curb drug use often have
little success.

The first real attempt to regulate drugs in the U.S. occurred in 1890
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Congress enacted a law taxing morphine and opium. In the years that
followed, cocaine use skyrocketed, rising 700% between 1890 and 1902
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popular, it was even found in drinks such as Coca-Cola
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from which it got its name.

This was followed by a 1909 act banning the smoking of opium, and, in
1937, the “Marihuana Tax Act
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The most comprehensive package of laws was instituted with the
Controlled Substances Act of 1970
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into five categories based on their medical uses and potential for
abuse or dependence. A year later, then-President Richard Nixon
launched the “War on Drugs”
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“public enemy No. 1.” And in 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug
Abuse Act
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directing US$1.7 billion
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for drug enforcement and control.

President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “Public enemy No. 1”
at this 1971 press conference.

These policies have generally failed [[link removed]]
to curb drug supply and use
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while also causing significant harm to people and communities of color
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For example, between 1980 and 1997
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number of incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses went from 50,000
to 400,000. But these policies hardly put a dent in consumption. The
share of high school seniors using drugs dipped only slightly over the
same period, from 65% in 1980
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to 58% in 1997
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In short, past U.S. efforts to reduce illegal drug use haven’t been
especially effective. Now, it looks like the U.S. is shifting toward
using tariffs – but research suggests that those will not lead to
better outcomes either, and could actually cause considerable harm.

Why tariffs won’t work

America’s experiments with tariffs can be traced back to the
founding era
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with the passage of the Tariff Act of 1789
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This long history has shown that tariffs
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industrial subsidies
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and protectionist policies don’t do much to stimulate broad economic
growth at home
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– but they raise prices for consumers and can even lead to global
economic instability
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History also shows that tariffs don’t work especially well as
negotiating tools, failing to effect significant policy changes in
target countries
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Economists generally agree
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that the costs of tariffs outweigh the benefits.

Over the course of Trump’s first term, the average effective tariff
rate on Chinese imports went from 3% to 11%
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But while imports from China fell slightly, the overall trade
relationship didn’t change much: China remains the second-largest
supplier
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of goods to the U.S.

The tariffs did have some benefit – for Vietnam
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and other nearby countries with relatively low labor costs.
Essentially, the tariffs on China caused production to shift, with
global companies investing billions of dollars in competitor nations.

This isn’t the first time Trump has used trade policy to pressure
China on fentanyl [[link removed]] – he
did so in his first term. But while China made some policy changes
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in response, such as adding fentanyl to its controlled substances list
in 2019, fentanyl deaths in the U.S.
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continued to rise. Currently, China
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still ranks as the No. 1 producer of fentanyl precursors, or chemicals
used to produce illicit fentanyl. And there are others in the
business: India
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over that same period, has become a major producer of fentanyl.

A question of supply and demand

Drugs have been pervasive throughout U.S. history. And when you
investigate this history and look at how other nations are dealing
with this problem rather than criminalization, the Swiss and French
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have approached it as an addiction problem that could be treated. They
realized that demand is what fuels the illicit market. And as any
economist will tell you, supply will find a way if you don’t limit
the demand. That’s why treatment works and bans don’t
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The U.S. government’s ability to control the production of these
drugs is limited at best. The problem is that new chemical products
will continually be produced. Essentially, failure to restrict demand
only places bandages on hemorrhaging wounds. What the U.S. needs is a
more systematic approach to deal with the demand that’s fueling the
drug crisis.

_This article was updated to include details of the tariffs once they
were imposed._[The Conversation]

Rodney Coates
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Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, _Miami University
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This article is republished from The Conversation
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the original article
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* Fentanyl
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* tariff
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* treatment
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* China
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* Canada
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* Mexico
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