In the international fight against illicit drugs, the perpetuation of programs has for decades been the U.S. government’s own kind of addiction. That’s why Secretary of State Marco Rubio chose to inspect the inventory. Now that his sweeping review is complete, projects, just like cargo containers at a port, are moving forward when they benefit America.
Few, however, have been willing to acknowledge the merit to taking programs off autopilot. Instead, a mainstream media driven by clicks ran articles suggesting the Trump administration “stopped anti-fentanyl work in Mexico” and “brought crucial anti-narcotics programs to a screeching halt.”
Here’s the truth. As soon as the foreign assistance pause and review began, the State Department moved rapidly to evaluate and greenlight critical programs. In the weeks since, almost 700 separate projects administered by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) have been reviewed, refined, and ultimately unlocked. Many of these are joint programs with the Department of Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Customs and Border Protection, which obtain funding for their joint programs from the State Department. Most of these relate to narcotrafficking, but some funding equips foreign law enforcement officials to confront other threats no less important.
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In Latin America, projects proven to be effective that are now back online include targeting systems in Mexico and Peru that provide intelligence on foreign passengers and cargo, canine units in Costa Rica that sniff out drugs en route to the U.S., interceptor boats that interdict narcotics off the coast of Panama, biometric screening at Salvadoran airports to identify fliers with criminal backgrounds, and lab testing in the Dominican Republic to detect fentanyl. These come on top of the Trump administration’s designation of significant drug cartels and criminal gangs as foreign terrorist organizations, and the deportation of criminal Tren de Aragua members
It’s ironic that the same outlets feigning concern are ones that, in the past, have lampooned America’s War on Drugs as it is waged overseas. The Washington Post, for example, has claimed Republican policies have “deepened an impulse toward foreign intervention that has produced questionable results” and pointed out that “policymakers’ attention on foreign bad guys and foreign drug flows did little to protect the country from opioids” and fentanyl.
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They can’t have it both ways – attack Secretary Rubio’s comprehensive assessment but also decry past efforts that, in a rush to “do something” and/or “do more” have not prevented tens of thousands of Americans from dying from drug overdoses year after year.
Critics, therefore, would do well to ask the same basic questions Secretary Rubio is posing: Is it the United States’ responsibility, from a moral perspective, to eliminate or at least erode the overseas actors fueling our domestic drug crisis? What roles do foreign governments play, what resources do they bring to bear, and what objectives can they not achieve absent U.S. aid?
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As our country’s checkered history of foreign “capacity building” suggests, are training programs really ever capable – on their own – of “stopping” narcotraffickers who themselves possess tremendous financial resources, weaponry, and social caché? What type of equipment – or mentoring – actually facilitates cross-border investigations, prosecutions, and extraditions?
It turns out that certain programs are virtually worthless when it comes to catching bad guys. That is why INL has terminated over half a billion dollars in grants and contracts since January 20. It is hard to justify Americans paying for “alternatives to incarceration” in the Indo-Pacific, courthouse furniture in rural South America, and law enforcement gender studies in Central Asia – especially when resources are finite, and evidence of a real impact, for the Trump administration, is paramount.
In Secretary Rubio’s view, we have to be honest with ourselves. In the past, certain programs functioned as their own kind of drug – as we patted ourselves on the back and felt better about “making a difference” globally. Now the decades-long high is finally wearing off – and reality is setting in.
When it comes to counternarcotics, there are better and worse law enforcement programs. We will keep the good ones and cut the bad ones. Saving American money and saving American lives need not be in conflict.
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