President Donald Trump's freeze on foreign aid has reportedly stalled a program designed to inhibit fentanyl imports into the United States.
Eight people familiar with the matter told Reuters that the United Nations counternarcotics program had been derailed in Mexico by Trump's effort to freeze foreign aid.
The program provided Mexico's Navy "with training and equipment to improve screening of cargo entering and exiting the Port of Manzanillo, the nation's busiest container port," Reuters said. The addition of two more ports — Lázaro Cárdenas and Veracruz — was put on hold after the Trump administration ordered a freeze on aid programs.
Chinese chemical precursors to fentanyl have long been brought into the Port of Manzanillo. The Container Control Programme was a joint venture between the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the World Customs Organization. The United States originally provided around $800,000 in funding to launch the project, according to the report.
"The U.S. funding freeze has also shelved, for now, future training and equipment donations at Manzanillo, four of the sources said. The port was slated to receive additional cargo scanners and drug-testing equipment," Reuters revealed.
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While campaigning for office, Trump said that stopping fentanyl deaths would be a focus of his presidency.
"Stopping all these programs at this moment, I just don't see how this is going to have a positive impact on reducing the numbers of fentanyl deaths in the U.S.," former senior State Department official Enrique Roig told Reuters.