If not now, when? On February 1, Trump put 25 percent tariffs on Mexico, China, and Canada, meaning, yes, things they make will cost more compared with US goods. Beyond helping “American made” and pulling in foreign money, he is after more: Cutting fentanyl and illegals dramatically.
The battle is only being joined. It will be a long effort to restore public health and safety. Beyond illegal immigration, these countries are behind fentanyl deaths, even in places like Maine, where 40 to 70 kids a month lose their lives to a drug overdose.
When you add shipping pure heroin – now in rural Maine – fentanyl-related synthetics and precursors, these are the big offenders. Behind them are Colombia, Peru, Afghanistan, and others.
Will Trump’s strategy work? Yes, with five other strategies – (1) renewed public awareness of the gravity, (2) support for state and local anti-drug law enforcement, (3) stiffer consequences by state courts (handling 90 percent of crime), (4) effective, accessible drug treatment by states (aided by Justice and HHS), and (5) reintroduction of prevention programs, which worked for decades.
How do we get there? The new tariffs – meant to pressure countries to stop drug trafficking – are “source country” focused. That focus aligns with programs from the late 1980s through the early 2000s.
Having written much of the legislation helped create the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act, High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, interagency task forces, reauthorization of the Office of National Drug Control, worked with multiple Attorneys General, DEA, Coast Guard, and National Guard heads, and then run counter-drug and law enforcement programs in 70 countries, it can be done.
That said, the way we slay this rising dragon – rapidly accelerating drug abuse, addiction, overdoses, and deaths – is to bring the power of states in behind the President’s federal initiatives.
What does that look like? Let’s take rural Maine for example. Under Democrat rule for 30 years, minus one strong governor and brief legislative flip, Maine has been ravaged by organized crime, a problem that is now taking on ominous dimensions. Those groups must be hit hard and dislodged.
The State has seen an unthinkable rise in drug trafficking, abuse, addiction, overdoses, and fatalities. Today, Dominican, Mexican, Chinese, and other foreign traffickers are dividing up and fighting over Maine – turning its formerly safe profile into something darker, and addicting, killing Mainers, ruining families, and placing communities, youth through older citizens, on edge.
In my youth, Maine might have seen five overdoses in a year. Now, we have 10,000 a year, radiating circles of grief, depression, fear, dysfunction, and a sense that the problem is out of control. The Democrat governor gives out 20,000 units of Narcan – a resuscitating tool – a month.
Democrats call that the “new normal,” together with needle giveaways. “New” it is, “normal” it is not – and cannot be. The number of kids using, becoming addicted, trapped, and dying just grows.
There is no victory – in Maine or America, watching elevated overdoses kill more kids, claiming we have more resuscitations. Claiming victory on such facts is a fool’s errand, or worse – just a lie.
Needed now – to match President Trump’s recommitment to stopping drugs at the “source” – is a recommitment by states, especially rural states like Maine, to drive organized crime out of the state and nation, reauthorizing and up-funding law enforcement – local, state and federal. No excuses.
More, we must – not should, not try, not maybe, but must – make real drug treatment accessible to the thousands literally crying for it. I have sat with them. We must reintroduce parent, teacher, civic, and school drug prevention programs. We must stop indulging traffickers and false information.
We have our work cut out for us. This high-purity drug menace – which has delivered a body blow to public safety nationwide – continues to ravage places like Maine. Few seem yet to realize how betrayed states like Maine were by those in power, who pretend to help but are ineffective at best.
This issue – Trump is right and so are those behind a complete rethink – is as real and personal, non-political and serious, life-and-death .. as it gets. We either act now, as Trump is doing, or lose.
Ironically, Trump’s tariffs are not just right, they are the first step in a long journey that is – honestly – way overdue: Restoring public safety to places like Maine, eand very American state. If not now, when?
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).
