Wisconsin.- The Republican Party adopted the crisis of deaths from fentanyl overdoses trafficked from Mexico as a new electoral weapon in the race for the White House, blaming it directly on current President Joe Biden despite the fact that the crisis began before his term.
During the second day of the Republican National Convention in this city, the main speakers claimed that Biden’s border policies caused the increase in fentanyl deaths, even accusing him of directly benefiting the Mexican cartels that produce it.
“I hold Joe Biden and Kamala Harris – the Border Czar – responsible for the death of my son,” said Anne Fundner, one of the speakers introduced by the Republican Party, who lost her son to an overdose in 2022.
In the presence of former President Donald Trump, who was making his second appearance at the Convention since the attempt on his life last Saturday, the keynote speakers – who included his former rival for the Republican presidential nomination Nikki Haley – mixed the fentanyl crisis with irregular migration.
However, data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows that 90 percent of fentanyl arriving in the U.S. is transported clandestinely in private vehicles at official ports of entry, and not via migrants crossing the border illegally.
However, the Republican Party went further, broadcasting a video with a ghostly voice attributing direct responsibility for some 300,000 fentanyl deaths to current President Biden – Trump’s Democratic rival in November – and connecting him to Mexican cartels.
“Under Biden’s watch, the total amount of illegal fentanyl that has crossed our border has been enough to kill every single American. This is terrifying. This weak man has been great for the Mexican drug cartels,” said a video broadcast during the Convention.
During his campaign for Senator for Ohio, JD Vance, Trump’s new vice-presidential running mate, said that in the American Midwest states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio itself, the fentanyl crisis is more serious than the war in Ukraine.
According to official estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the total number of fentanyl deaths during President Biden’s first three calendar years totaled some 218,000 fatal overdoses, not counting the first 6 months of 2024.
However, observers and experts in drug trafficking and substance abuse have explained that the crisis due to the consumption of the synthetic opioid known as fentanyl began around 2012 and 2013 and even during Trump’s presidency the curve grew to record some 154 thousand deaths in 4 years.
Democrats directly criticized Republicans on Capitol Hill for having, despite tough rhetoric on tightening the border, halted a massive border security increase in February at Trump’s request that would have included billions of dollars for drug scanners.
According to CBP data, the total amount of fentanyl seized during the entire Fiscal Year 2023 (from October 2022 to September 2023) at the border with Mexico amounted to 12.1 tons, which would mean an unprecedented record, despite alleged calls from Mexican cartels to ban it.
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