How US Trade Policy Has Influenced the Opioid Crisis
Free trade deregulation and the loopholes it creates.
This short piece on the United States’ international trade policy will look at the direct correlation between deregulated imports and skyrocketing fentanyl use in its towns and cities.
In 2016 the United States updated its trade law to increase the dollar value of imported goods that can be imported without inspection. Formally known as de minimis (from the Latin phrase meaning “too small to bother”), these regulatory laws were originally meant to ease import traffic, allowing small, inexpensive parcels to enter the country “duty free.”
Now, the United States’ de minimis threshold stands at $800, the highest in the world. As American consumers’ online shopping habits grow, so too do the number of small imports enter the country under the de minimis cap. Think Temu, Shein, and other cheap household/clothing/makeup companies. Americans love these guys: the ease of finding one of thousands of options within your price range, clicking a purchase button and having whatever it is delivered to your doorstep within days is a dream come true and almost addictive in itself.
The quantity of shipments entering the United States without inspection has skyrocketed at the same time as the country’s fentanyl surge. And there is a correlation. Four million parcels under the price cap enter the country on a daily basis, making up 90% of all imports, a significant portion of which are shipped from China. These millions of unchecked shipments create a lot of room for the smuggling of drug precursors: inexpensive chemicals that are used to synthesize fentanyl and other illicit drugs.
Here’s the way it works: labs in China ship packages of precursors (very cheap, relatively small) to traffickers in the US who send them down to Mexico where they are synthesized into consumable drugs and smuggled back into the States.
Random searches have resulted in the seizures of tons of these chemicals. 3.8 tons in 2023, to be exact, which is four times what was uncovered in 2021 (Reuters, 2024). 3.8 tons of fentanyl precursors would make enough dope to kill the entire United States population. And that number is a sliver of the whole pie. Even if most shipping containers were to be checked upon arrival, finding all of these precursor parcels would be highly unlikely. The configuration of packages in shipping containers makes a thorough search tedious and extremely time consuming. Shipments are packed Russian nesting doll style– small parcels boxed up with larger ones which are loaded into an even larger “master container.” A small package of chemicals hidden amongst a random arrangement of a hundred other individually packaged products easily slips under the radar. According to Reuters, some Chinese chemical suppliers are so confident their shipments will go undetected that they offer a free replacement for any purchase caught by authorities.
The Biden administration, recognizing the severity of this loophole’s consequences, has moved to limit de minimis eligibility. The Import and Security Fairness Act, proposed by Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) would exclude all Chinese imports from tariff-free entry and limit Chinese-based companies’ de minimis eligibility. If the bill goes into action (big if) it would mean the end to de minimis eligibility for 70 percent of Chinese textile and apparel imports (40 percent of total US imports), dealing a huge blow to e-trade and e-commerce and forcing a shift in American’s consumption habits. Naturally, the US Chamber of Commerce is in staunch opposition to any action limiting free trade between the United States and China.
There is a pretty small chance that a policy such as the Import and Security Fairness Act will pass Congress and the courts and all the lobbyists, and nobody knows what stance Trump will take if he wins the White House in November’s election, but here are some important facts that policy makers and voters should keep in mind:
75,000 people overdosed and died on synthetic opioids in the US last year.
The precursors to make 1 million pills of fentanyl costs around $1,000 and can be purchased legally on the internet.
Fentanyl is roughly 50 times stronger than heroin.
A 2022 DEA study found that 6 in 10 fake prescription pills contained a lethal amount of fentanyl.
Overdose deaths are rising amongst the elderly population (people 65 and up).
People without health insurance and those formerly incarcerated are at the highest risk of drug fatality.
Addiction is largely an epidemic of despair. Something to think about as politicians strip us of rights and healthcare and make us distrust our neighbors.
Citations:
DEA. (2022). Public Safety Alert: DEA Laboratory Testing Reveals that 6 out of 1o Fentanyl-Laced Fake Prescription Pills Now Contain a Potentially Lethal Dose of Fentanyl. US. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration.
GEA Global Express Association. (2024). De Minimis Thresholds. Global Express Association.
Jorgic, D. et al. (2024, October 1). How fentanyl traffickers are exploiting a U.S. trade law to kill Americans. Reuters.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/drugs-fentanyl-shipping/
Rubio, M. Press Releases (2023, June 16). Rubio, Brown Introduce Import Security and Fairness Act. Marco Rubio: US Senator for Florida.
https://www.rubio.senate.gov/rubio-brown-introduce-import-security-and-fairness-act/
Tamman, M. et al. (2024, July 25). We bought everything needed to make $3 million worth of fentanyl.
All it took was $3,600 and a web browser. Reuters.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/drugs-fentanyl-supplychain/
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