Biden prods Congress to act to curb fentanyl from Mexico as Trump paints Harris as weak on border
WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden urges Congress to help him do more to combat the scourge of fentanyl before he leaves office.
The Democratic administration is setting the new policy course now that the former President Donald Trump intensifies attacks on vice president Kamala Harrisand portrays her as Biden’s reckless lieutenant in the fight to slow the flow of illegal drugs and illegal immigrants from Mexico into the United States.
The White House on Wednesday announced a series of Biden proposals aimed at curbing the ongoing drug epidemic. They include a push for Congress to pass legislation to establish a registry for pill presses and tablet makers and increase penalties for convicted drug smugglers and fentanyl traffickers.
Biden also wants to tighten rules for importers shipping small packages into the United States, requiring shippers to provide additional information to Customs and Border Protection officials. The measure is aimed at improving detection of fentanyl precursor chemicals that often find their way into the United States in relatively low-value shipments that are not subject to customs and trade barriers.
The president’s new efforts to combat fentanyl could also benefit Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, as Trump and his surrogates try to portray her as a central player in the Biden administration’s troubles at the U.S.-Mexico border throughout his time in office.
“Yet far too many of our fellow Americans continue to lose loved ones to fentanyl,” Biden said in a statement. “This is a time to take action. And this is a time to stand together — for all those we’ve lost, and for all the lives we can still save.”
Biden said he will also sign a national security memorandum on Wednesday aimed at improving information sharing between law enforcement and federal agencies to improve visibility into the production flows and smuggling of the synthetic opioid that has devastated large parts of America. More than 442 million doses of fentanyl have been seized at U.S. borders in the past five months, the White House said.
The Trump campaign launched its first television commercial of the general election cycle on Tuesday, in which Harris was dubbed the “border czar” and blamed for a surge in illegal border crossings into the United States during the Biden administration. After showing headlines about crime and drugs, the video brands Harris as “Failed. Weak. Dangerous liberal.”
Border crossings reached record highs during the Biden administration, but have declined recently.
According to data from media tracking firm AdImpact, the Trump campaign has so far earmarked $12.2 million for television and digital advertising over the next two weeks.
Biden Harris was tasked early in his administration by addressing the root causes of migration. Border crossings became a major political burden for Biden as they reached historic levels. Since June, when Biden announced significant restrictions In asylum applications at the border, the number of arrests for illegal border crossings has fallen.
Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a symbolic resolution last week criticism of Harris’ work on the border on behalf of the Biden administration.
The White House reiterated its call for Congress to pass far-reaching immigration legislation that includes funding for more border agents and drug detection equipment at the border. GOP senators earlier this year months of negotiations failed with Democrats on legislation aimed at curbing record numbers of illegal border crossings after Trump gutted the bipartisan proposal.
Biden’s proposed pill-pressing registry would help law enforcement crack down on drug dealers who use pill presses to squeeze fentanyl into pills.
Authorities say most illicit fentanyl is produced clandestinely in Mexico, using precursor chemicals imported from China. Synthetic opioids are the biggest killers in the deadliest drug crisis the U.S. has ever seen. In 2014, nearly 50,000 deaths in the U.S. were linked to overdoses on all types of drugs. By 2022, the total had surpassed 100,000, according to a tally by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than two-thirds of those deaths — more than 200 a day — involved fentanyl or similar synthetic drugs.
Meanwhile, government officials and Chinese government officials are expected to meet on Wednesday to discuss measures to stem the flow of chemical precursors from China, a senior official said.
Biden and the Chinese President Xi Jinping announced on a November Summit in California that Beijing had agreed to pressure its chemical companies to Limit shipments to Latin America and elsewhere of the materials used to produce fentanyl. China also agreed to resume sharing information about suspected trafficking with an international database.
But one special committee of the House aimed at countering the Chinese government released a report in April that China was still fueling the fentanyl crisis in the US by directly subsidizing the production of materials used by drug traffickers to produce the drugs outside the country.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said China has taken “important steps” but much more needs to be done.