Trump Signs Law Targeting One of America’s Deadliest Crises — Fentanyl | The American Spectator

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump hosted lawmakers and families victimized by fentanyl abuse to sign bipartisan legislation cracking down on the drug and its variants. 

Dubbed the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act (HALT), the legislation will reclassify both illicit fentanyl and similar drugs as Schedule I drugs under the Controlled Substances Act. 

The administration believes this rescheduling, which will impose harsher penalties for illegal distributors, is the best way to combat cartels that produce fentanyl variants to bypass harsher punishments under the Controlled Substances Act. 

The president said that the law delivers “another defeat for the savage drug smugglers and criminals and the cartels.”

Trump has cited the influx of fentanyl from China, Mexico, and Canada as justification for his tariff war, indicating that the legislation could soften trade relations insofar as the root issue will be addressed in a significant manner. 

At the signing ceremony, President Trump stated, “We’ll be getting the drug dealers, pushers and peddlers off our streets,” and that the move takes “a historic step toward justice for every family touched by the fentanyl scourge.”

One attendant named Gregg Swan, who lost his son to fentanyl poisoning, told Trump, “I would just like to say, thank you, Mr. President, for stopping the border crossings… It was amazing what you did. We were being gaslit — and you came and lit a fire to that story, and we’re a lot safer for it.”

Another mother and activist victimized by the opioid highlighted the severity of the crisis, stating, “In the last four years, fentanyl became the number one killer to Americans ages 15 to 48… President Trump, for four years we felt ignored, but you’ve changed that.”

Deaths from carfentanil, a related drug 100 times more potent than fentanyl, were found to rise sevenfold from early 2023 to mid-2024. The National Center for Biotechnology Information found that during 2023, fentanyl was responsible for seven in ten overdose deaths. 

Among overdose statistics, fentanyl has been responsible for hundreds of deaths or near-deaths due to the poisoning of children and babies. Scripps News has reported “more than 460 cases of reported child opioid poisoning incidents from nearly every state in the U.S. from 2018 to 2025 — a total that is almost certainly an undercount. That tally includes more than 260 deaths.”

In addition to activists and the families of victims, the signing ceremony was attended by House Speaker Mike Johnson, GOP Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and others. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy introduced the bill along with Democrat Sen. Martin Heinrich.  

White House officials stated ahead of the signing that the Fraternal Order of Police, the Center for Immigration Studies, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform would be attending. 

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