Trump’s Foreign Aid Freeze Halts Anti-Fentanyl Program, Allowing Drug Flow to U.S.

News
Amanda Austin
February 25, 2025
0
45
8 minutes read

(Photo: Bloomberg)

President Donald Trump’s decision to freeze foreign aid has reportedly disrupted a critical program aimed at curbing fentanyl imports into the United States. Eight sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that the United Nations counternarcotics initiative in Mexico had been derailed due to Trump’s aid freeze.

The program, designed to assist Mexico’s Navy, provided training and equipment to improve the screening of cargo entering and exiting the Port of Manzanillo, Mexico’s busiest container port. Plans to expand the initiative to two additional ports, Lázaro Cárdenas,and Veracruz, were halted following the Trump administration’s decision to suspend aid funding.

Chinese chemical precursors used to manufacture fentanyl have long entered Mexico through the Port of Manzanillo. The Container Control Programme, a collaboration between the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the World Customs Organization, was initially backed by the United States, which provided approximately $800,000 to launch the effort, according to the report.

“The U.S. funding freeze has also shelved, for now, future training and equipment donations at Manzanillo,” Reuters reported, citing four sources. The port had been slated to receive additional cargo scanners and drug-testing equipment to enhance monitoring efforts.

Donald Trump Tuxedo — (Photo by Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)

Despite pledging to combat fentanyl-related deaths, Trump’s funding halt has raised concerns among experts and officials about the potential repercussions. “Stopping all these programs at this moment, I just don’t see how this is going to have a positive impact on reducing the numbers of fentanyl deaths in the U.S.,” former senior State Department official Enrique Roig told Reuters.

As the freeze continues, the suspension of these counternarcotics efforts could undermine broader efforts to curb fentanyl trafficking, a crisis that has contributed to a significant number of drug-related fatalities in the United States.