Label is the latest instance of Trump using militarised, symbolic language to justify US operations against drug smuggling.
Published On 15 Dec 2025
Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump has said he will sign an executive order labelling fentanyl and its core precursors as a “weapon of mass destruction” (WMD), in the latest instance of his administration using increasingly militarised language to justify its operations against drug cartels and smugglers.
The announcement came on Monday after the Trump administration’s repeated references to drug smugglers as “narco-terrorists” and its designation of Latin American cartels as “foreign terrorist organisations”.
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The administration has repeatedly claimed that international drug smuggling groups are not criminal networks bent on profit, but organisations aimed at destabilising the US.
“There’s no doubt that America’s adversaries are trafficking fentanyl into the United States, in part because they want to kill Americans,” Trump said on Monday during a White House event.
“That’s why today, I’m taking one more step to protect Americans from the scourge of deadly fentanyl flooding into our country,” he added.
“With this historic executive order I will sign today, we’re formally classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.”
It was not immediately clear if the label would have any practical impact or what bearing it would have on fentanyl legally bought for medical use.
The executive order called simply for a series of actions from the heads of executive agencies to “eliminate the threat of illicit fentanyl and its core precursor chemicals to the United States”.
Under current US law, which the president cannot unilaterally change, a weapon of mass destruction is defined as “any weapon that is designed or intended to cause death or serious bodily injury through the release, dissemination, or impact of toxic or poisonous chemicals, or their precursors”.
The definition includes “any weapon involving a biological agent