The Fight Against Fentanyl: A Victory the Media Refuses to Acknowledge

The Paul Truesdell Podcast

2025

Principal Storyteller and Analyst:

Paul Grant Truesdell, J.D., AIF, CLU, ChFC, RFC
Founder & CEO of The Truesdell Companies
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Rough Notes

The Fight Against Fentanyl: A Victory the Media Refuses to Acknowledge

When Trump Takes Action That Saves American Lives, The Media Looks Away

It never ceases to amaze me how far the mainstream media will go to avoid giving credit where credit is due. If this were the Biden administration, the Obama administration, or even the Bush administration, every network — CNN, NBC, CBS, you name it — would be falling all over themselves congratulating America for taking a bold step against the fentanyl crisis.
There would be *60 Minutes* specials. There would be White House ceremonies. There would be magazine covers. There would be endless interviews praising the "courage" and "determination" of our leaders.

But because it is Donald Trump who has taken decisive action — again — the silence is deafening.

Let me walk you through exactly what is happening.
And why this matters more than almost anything you are hearing on the evening news.

Starting May 2, the Trump administration is putting an end to a massive loophole called the **de minimis exception** in international shipping. For years, foreign producers — most notably in China and India — have been flooding the United States with small shipments of goods that bypass customs inspections and avoid tariffs simply because they claimed the package was worth less than $800.

Under de minimis, if you shipped a small box and declared it under $800, you did not have to pay tariffs, you did not have to go through real inspection, and you did not even have to list the contents with any meaningful detail.

Sounds harmless?
It was not.

**The U.S. Postal Service became the single biggest contributor to the drug trade without even meaning to.**

Here is how it worked:
Chemical plants in China would manufacture the pre-precursors and raw materials needed to create fentanyl — the deadly synthetic opioid that has fueled the worst drug epidemic in American history. They would package these chemicals into thousands of tiny parcels. These parcels would then be shipped through the U.S. Postal Service, exploiting the de minimis rule to fly under the radar.
Once inside our borders, the materials would be repackaged and sent down to Mexican drug labs, where fentanyl would be synthesized and then smuggled back into the United States in finished form.

It was a global death loop.
And it was being aided, whether knowingly or unknowingly, by our own postal system.

President Trump has taken a hammer to it.

The new rule will impose a **90% tariff**, with a **$75 minimum fee**, on any de minimis shipments.
In effect, this shuts down the pipeline.

**This will not solve fentanyl entirely.**
But it strikes at the heart of the distribution chain.
It will make it more expensive, riskier, slower, and harder to traffic the raw materials needed to flood our streets with poison.
It will save lives.
It will cripple the convenience that drug traffickers have enjoyed for years.

### The Cost of Doing Nothing

Let us talk facts.
Fentanyl deaths have skyrocketed in recent years. According to the CDC, more than **70,000 Americans died of fentanyl-related overdoses in 2023 alone**.
That is roughly **one death every seven minutes**.

The economic impact is staggering.
Beyond the unbearable human toll, the federal government estimates the opioid crisis costs the U.S. economy **over $1 trillion annually** — between health care costs, lost productivity, law enforcement, and legal proceedings.
Local police departments, sheriff’s offices, U.S. Marshals, DEA agents, and first responders have seen skyrocketing incidents of overdose responses, seizures, and deaths.
Fentanyl is so potent that **a single exposure to a small amount can kill a police officer** simply by skin contact or inhalation.
We have lost countless officers to accidental overdoses during drug busts.
We have seen communities ravaged by addiction, crime, and hopelessness.

When you add the costs of emergency room visits, long-term rehabilitation, child welfare services for orphaned children, and the sheer loss of productive life, the national burden is incalculable.

And for years, politicians have held "roundtables" and "task forces" and "working groups" — and done virtually nothing.

Until now.

### A Real Step Forward

What Trump has done here is not cosmetic.
It is not a press conference.
It is not a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

It is action.
It is the kind of **real-world, no-nonsense policy** that actually stops bad actors from doing bad things.

By shutting down the de minimis loophole, Trump has not just hit Chinese chemical plants and Mexican cartels where it hurts — he has hit the corrupt globalist system that benefits from cheap, unregulated shipping while American citizens pay the price in lives and treasure.

This is a big deal.
And yet... crickets.
The media does not want to talk about it.

Because to talk about it would mean admitting that Donald Trump — the man they have demonized, slandered, and mocked for nearly a decade — has done something profoundly good for the country.

And that is something they can never allow.

### The Hypocrisy is Unforgivable

When Joe Biden stumbles onto a stage, the media calls him "resilient."
When Barack Obama dropped more drone bombs than any president in history, the media called him "measured."
When George W. Bush launched a disastrous war in Iraq, t...