President Donald Trump has signed an executive order designating illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, a move his administration says will intensify federal efforts against the cartels that produce and traffic the drug. The announcement came as Trump honored troops involved in securing the U.S.-Mexico border.
On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order classifying illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction (WMD), according to the White House and reporting by The Daily Wire and other outlets. The designation is intended to stiffen penalties for traffickers and broaden the authorities available to federal agencies targeting the cartels that manufacture and move the synthetic opioid.
The order, described by Reuters as a significant escalation in the U.S. response to the fentanyl crisis, allows national security and defense agencies to treat the illicit use of the drug more like a chemical threat than a traditional narcotics problem, opening the door to tools normally reserved for countering weapons of mass destruction.
Trump announced the move while awarding medals to troops for their work securing the southern border. “No bomb does what this is doing. 200,000 to 300,000 people die every year that we know of, so we’re formally classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction,” he said, according to The Daily Wire and a video posted by the Trump War Room account on X.
A post from Trump War Room on December 15, 2025, amplified Trump’s remarks, highlighting his claim that fentanyl is causing between 200,000 and 300,000 deaths annually. Public health data from U.S. authorities, however, have previously put recent annual drug overdose deaths—across all substances—at lower levels, in the low six figures.
Derek Maltz, Trump’s former acting Drug Enforcement Administration administrator, told The Daily Wire the step was long overdue. He said the designation would shut down cartel financing “at a new level” by enabling the Department of War to “use all capabilities, authorities and expertise to up the game at a new level” against those producing and trafficking illicit fentanyl.
Maltz also said the order could help the federal government address other emerging synthetic drugs, including the nitazenes class of narcotics, which he described as being produced in adversarial laboratories and as much as 40 times more potent than fentanyl. Independent experts and state officials have likewise warned in recent years that nitazenes can be significantly more powerful than fentanyl, heightening overdose risks.
For context, federal and state authorities have long noted that even very small amounts of fentanyl can be deadly. The Daily Wire article, citing public health guidance, notes that about two milligrams of fentanyl—roughly equivalent to 10 to 15 grains of table salt—is enough to kill the average adult.
The Trump administration has previously moved to confront drug trafficking networks with national security tools. According to The Daily Wire and other reporting, it has designated certain cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and carried out nearly 20 strikes on suspected trafficking vessels off the coast of Venezuela as part of efforts to cut off maritime routes used to smuggle narcotics into the United States.
The WMD designation for illicit fentanyl follows years of calls by some state attorneys general and members of Congress to treat the drug as a potential mass-casualty chemical threat and to coordinate more closely among agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Defense.