ההכרזה של טראמפ שהפנטניל הוא "נשק להשמדה המונית" | דעה

President Trump designating fentanyl and its core precursor chemical as weapons of mass destruction. This paves the way for enhanced sentences, the crippling of financial structures, and a bolstering of national security resources to disrupt those responsible for trafficking the deadly drug into the U.S. And here to give us insight on this is Steve Yates, Senior Research Fellow for China and National Security at the Heritage Foundation. Steve, thanks for your time. We know you lost your daughter to fentanyl about two years ago, and our condolences to you and your family. Walk us through the new resources that this designation gives law enforcement agencies and, if needed, the military to combat fentanyl and counter the cartels that are enriching themselves from trafficking it. Well, I would emphasize that this part is sort of like two sides of the same coin. The terrorist designation of the cartels opens up a lot of financial measures and also military measures to go after specific people, specific properties, and things like that. The WMD designation goes after the substance and then those institutions that finance or enable the substance. It primarily opens up channels that would open reputational risk for governments that are condoning or giving safe harbor to these institutions and these enterprises. So it really expands sanctions and those kinds of tools, less so on the military side of things. The terrorist designation on the cartels is much more of a straight line into use of military force. It isn't eliminated from the substance designation. It's just sort of another side of the same coin that really ought to clamp down on the flow before you get to the transport into our country.