In my continuing series, ‘What Have You Done For Me Lately’, I want to talk about what this administration has done about the fentanyl/drug problem here in the US.
If you remember, I started this series to look at and talk about the things that people credit Mr. Trump and his administration with that make him ‘the best president ever’. I am trying really hard to be honest and fair, primarily because so many of my friends, family members and acquaintances actually do credit him with that designation.
I have looked at the tax breaks and the border and immigration, both the good and the bad. It is important to note, and to remind both myself and you, my reader, that the entire purpose of this blog is figuring out how I should respond to these political happenings in the light of ‘Jesus Christ and Him crucified.’ It can seem as though these posts are primarily political, with numbers, quotes, arguments, etc. Of course, we have to discuss the claim, the reality, the response, and the rubber-meets-the-road aspects of them all. While ‘tax cuts’ and ‘border control’ and even ‘fentanyl control’ are wonderful things that we should all be rooting for, if any of those things cost my neighbor too much, then they are not so wonderful.
Back to fentanyl.
First. People are dying less. That is real, and it matters.
Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45. Not car accidents. Not cancer. A synthetic opioid so potent that two milligrams — about ten grains of table salt — is a lethal dose. It has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. It has emptied towns and shattered families and left children without parents, and parents without children.
Overdose deaths from fentanyl fell from roughly 75,000 in 2023 to about 48,000 in 2024. That is a 27% drop. Total overdose deaths fell from 105,000 to 79,000 in the same period. Those are not small numbers. Those are 26,000 people who did not die.
Fentanyl seizures at the southern border dropped by half in the first half of 2025 compared to recent years. Less coming in. Fewer people are dying. I am not going to minimize that.
26,000 people. Alive! Who might not have been.
That matters to me. I hope it matters to you.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly attributed the continuing decline in overdose deaths to President Trump’s policies at the southern border, military strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, and Trump’s work to stop chemicals used to make fentanyl from being imported from China. dittany
In February 2025, Trump designated eight major cartels — including the Sinaloa Cartel, MS-13, and Tren de Aragua — as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. In July 2025, Trump signed the HALT Fentanyl Act into law. In December 2025, Trump signed an executive order designating illicit fentanyl as a Weapon of Mass Destruction. And he used tariffs as leverage — imposing duties on Mexico, Canada, and China partly on the grounds that they were not doing enough to stop the flow of fentanyl.
These are all great things! 26000 lives saved. Less fentanyl coming in with border seizures down by almost half in the first half of 2025! That’s huge, and I thank God for it.
Where does the rubber meet the road on this?
The decline in overdose deaths began in 2023 and 2024 — before Trump took office in January 2025. The trend was already moving in the right direction. That does not erase what his administration has done. This does not negate what this administration has done, only the claim that he is The One responsible for it.
And then there are the boats.
Beginning in September 2025, the United States military began launching airstrikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. The administration called it Operation Southern Spear. They said the boats were carrying drugs. They said the people on them were narco-terrorists.
As of May 2026, Operation Southern Spear has carried out more than 50 strikes, killing at least 193 people. The operation is ongoing. The number will be higher by the time you read this. “No public evidence was produced to support the claims about the cargo or the identities of those on board.” Stripes
In a classified congressional briefing in December 2025, Secretary of State Rubio and Defense Secretary Hegseth told lawmakers the boats were believed to be carrying cocaine. Not fentanyl. The boats being bombed in the name of fentanyl were carrying cocaine.
A Colombian man named Alejandro Carranza was killed in one strike. His family and Colombia’s president said he was a fisherman with no ties to drug trafficking.
193 people killed in international waters, violating international law, primarily carrying cocaine, if anything at all. brennan
But here’s the thing, the Coast Guard — using the legal framework that has existed for decades — intercepted over 500,000 pounds of cocaine in fiscal year 2025. A record amount. With no deaths. CNN
The legal way. Record results. Nobody died. No illegal boat bombing.
“But, honestly, 110 deaths of narco-terrorists as compared to saving 26000 lives, it’s worth it, right?” Well, first of all, I would say no. Every life is valuable. But here is what the numbers tell us.
Trump said “Every boat that gets hit, we save 25,000 American lives.” (nbc)
Vanda Felbab-Brown, drug trafficking expert at the Brookings Institution, said plainly: “Killing a drug mule has minimal effect on the flow of drugs or the systems of criminal organizations.” And specifically about fentanyl: “Whatever actions are taken in the Caribbean have no effect on fentanyl.” PBS
Why? Because the Trump administration’s own State Department International Narcotics Control Strategy Report identified Mexico as the only significant source of illicit fentanyl affecting the United States. Fentanyl is primarily manufactured in foreign clandestine labs and smuggled through Mexico — not through Venezuela or the Caribbean. Fox 59
What does it mean to know nothing but Christ — and Him crucified — when I am looking at 26,000 people who did not die of overdoses last year?
It means I am grateful. Genuinely, on-my-knees grateful. Every one of those 26,000 is someone’s child. Someone’s parent. Someone God knew before they were formed. If even one policy, one order, one seizure kept one of them alive, that matters. That is worth saying out loud and meaning it.
And.
What does it mean to know nothing but Christ when I am looking at Alejandro Carranza? The fisherman. The man whose family says he had nothing to do with drugs, killed in international waters by a military strike, no trial, no warrant, no evidence produced, no arrest made — just a missile and a press release on Truth Social.
It means I cannot look away. Because He didn’t.
Jesus did not sort people into the ones worth grieving and the ones who had it coming. He wept at Lazarus’s tomb knowing full well he was about to raise him. He stopped on the road for the one bleeding in the ditch when everyone else had already done the math and kept walking. He asked, always, about the one. The one sheep. The one coin. The one son.
I keep thinking about the two men who survived the first boat strike. They were clinging to the wreckage of their vessel in the Caribbean Sea. The administration acknowledged they were there. Acknowledged there was no communication from them. And struck the boat again.
Men. Clinging to wreckage. Struck again.
Because they might have radioed someone.
What would Jesus do?
I think He would have gone into the water after them.
I don’t even know what to think, or how to react, or what to do. Except pray, and ask, how do I go into the water after them, too?
