Víctor Davis Hanson
Over 100,000 Americans are dying from opiate overdoses per year—mostly fentanyl coming across the southern border. China ships to the cartels the raw product. They refine it and stamp it into pills for export solely to the U.S., deliberately using shapes and sizes to make their export seem similar to other less deadly drugs.
China sees fentanyl as divine nemesis for the 19th-century Opium Wars: Just as Great Britain in the 1830s and 1840s once sent mass death and addiction into China via opium, so it now will do the same as payback to the U.S.
Ditto Mexico. It feels that the loss of the American southwest by intrusive Texans and others in the 1840s is now divinely paid back by millions of Mexicans pouring northward de facto to reclaim lost lands (this fantasy is often explicitly boasted about in radical La Raza literature).
Or as President Lopez Obrador of Mexico recently boasted to a visiting clueless Biden of massive unchecked and green-lighted illegal immigration into the U.S: “Just imagine: There are 40 million Mexicans in the United States—40 million who were born here in Mexico, (or) who are the children of people who were born in Mexico!”
Lopez Obrador strangely thought it reflected well on his Mexico that 40 millions of his own citizens wanted to leave his country as soon as possible and at any cost.
The open border is now a conduit to mass death. Let me be clear: The cartels, the Mexican government (Mexico’s top drug enforcement officer is currently on trial in the U.S. for involvement in drug trafficking), and China are making billions of dollars on the mass death of Americans, a toll each year about 12 times more than all the Americans killed in Afghanistan and Iraq over some 20 years.
I am not excusing the culpability of Americans who ingest these lethal doses, but many are young and some not sure what they are swallowing in the zest of pre-adult ignorance. But I am sure that Mexico and China and the cartels either do not care about the mass death or in some sick way think it aids their national interests (China’s especially).
Note that the border is wide open. Over five million foreigners crossed since Biden took office—almost all illegally. Biden mocked the new sections of the wall, where now illegals do not cross. The amount of destruction, costs, and illegality that Biden has brought his country, including the genocide from fentanyl through his open border, is quite astonishing, and seems an obvious impeachable offense by a bankrupt president who refused to enforce his own country’s laws.
As for Mexico, the cartels are making tens of billions of dollars from illegally transporting millions of aliens into the U.S. and selling lethal drugs—huge sums sucked out of the U.S. that trickle down throughout the Mexican economy.
Add the $60 billion Mexico City receives from remittances from its some 20 million illegal aliens (our state and federal entitlements free up the cash for illegals to send these huge sums back home to subsidize family members whom the Mexican government will not or cannot help).
What to do?
Three simple suggestions:
1) The next Republican administration should finish the wall along the complete length of the border. No talk about virtual fences, surveillance, drones, etc. Just complete the entire new wall first and then worry about stopping those who try to go over it.
2) Place a ten-percent tax on all remittances sent to Mexico. Use the accruing $6 billion to pay for finishing the wall. Place a twenty-percent tax on any remittances sent to Mexico by anyone who cannot provide proof of legal residence in the U.S. or is currently receiving state or federal assistance.
3) Declare the cartels terrorist organizations and fine all banks known to transfer or deposit their profits. Deport immediately anyone found with cartel ties.
As for China, it would be quite easy to stop their export of fentanyl to North Americans:
Begin by denying visas to the 300,000 plus Chinese students in the U.S.
Calibrate the progress of cutbacks on the approximate reduction in fentanyl exports.
The students for the most part subsidize bankrupt budgeting of our universitas, whose wasteful expenditures require massive numbers of full-paying foreign students.
Most Chinese students in the STEM return to China and fuel its technological war against the U.S. About 1-2 percent are engaged in espionage. Once attention is focused on China’s exports of death, most will understand why China’s thousands of students are no longer welcome until the drugs cease.
How strange this country sleeps while we suffer a Vietnam-War-like death toll every year.
Discussion (21)
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Log In to CommentRemittances: Your highlighting of this issue is vital in helping our fellow citizens and political leaders awaken to the importance of this issue. The money sent back to their families of origin is made possible by our generous social safety net subsidies, and their displacement of others from the workforce by accepting less pay and driving down wages for lower income citizens. I wish to call your attention and that of your readers to an interesting "root cause" - HOUSE ENVY. Please refer to Chapter Five of the recent book by Todd Bensman entitled OVERRUN. Perhaps house envy is a specific "root cause" only for Guatemala, but economic aspirations clearly motivate the majority of illegal (and legal) immigrants. Our very generous immigration policy was originally intended to shelter those fleeing tyrannical prosecution, or individuals who would enhance OUR nation's economic strength. Unintended was facilitating the clever schemes of temporary visitors so that their family back home could compete with their neighbors new "canary yellow three-story, eight-bedroom home" (page 121 of the paperback edition).
The people running our government could care less about the average American. They seemingly are doing whatever they can to make life hard for middle class Americans.
Our debacle in Ukraine and Biden's promise coupled with that of Victoria Nuland regarding the Nord Stream Pipeline may eventually bring about a significant realignment of world nations. Now we are told that our cia and administration are spending taxpayer dollars trying to topple Modi in India. Hopefully, Modi prevails. But if he does, he probably will not be overly happy with us and may conclude that other nations are more suitable as friends. The Obama Admin made an attempt on an election in Israel. At this moment in time, China views us as weak, corrupt, over the hill, and is more likely to seek business redress they may need in other nations should we try fair trade. They already are from descriptions of people like David P Goldman.
Definitely, the US should do some vetting of foreign students applying to enter our universities and colleges, especially graduate level students. No foreign students should be allowed near our research institutions that deal with national defense technology. I have been advised by friends there that any foreigner close to a delicate military facility in China will be disappeared. Regarding the import of drugs from Mexico, I place more blame on those here hungry for the stuff. In a real sense, these people remove themselves from the gene pool. They should work on understanding consequence and critical thinking. Were there no market here, the Mexican cartels would earn zero and be gone. I suspect El Chapo was correct when he asserted that politicians on both sides of the border really want that activity to continue. The media is at their game when they try to infer that the four Americans in Matamoros were there to buy a tummy tuck and cheaper medicines. There were not retirees seeking cheaper medicines. A glance at the bodies in the street revealed pants well below their bottoms. I have yet to observe a senior citizen here of that style. All four are reported to have long rap sheets in crime with one giving her 8-year-old daughter heavy drugs. The method of ramming their car from the rear after cruising the hood hints they were not shopping for cheaper medicines. They may have been Americans but there is also some probability they were criminals on the prowl.
Actually Biden’s administration policies may soon halt illegal immigration. Given his current progress we may soon become the shithole nation no one wants to visit.
The over 10 myriad of Americans dead from overdoses, let alone the alcohol deaths and the general damage caused by drug use reflects a broken society where so many try to find comfort in legal and illegal drugs and pharmaceuticals. A society that isn’t a place of health, safety resulting in a gigantic market whose demand for drugs has corrupted Mexico and provided a source of money and perverse payback for China. We have met the enemy and it is us. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Something has gone terribly wrong in our country’s fabric
Thanks for a great comment Lisa! I understand your statement that America needs to figure out who are friends are. Should we assume that the United States of America has no friends and thus plan our future accordingly? Another country’s actions towards the USA will clearly settle the question of “friend or foe”.
Late to the party. Hopefully not to late. Three suggestions: 1. Find a way to legally involve the military, with an objective that not one person cross the border illegally. Not one. 2. Military, and Govt sponsored health care programs, preference drugs, from aspirin on up, purchased from suppliers in the USA. 3. Review of all foreign purchases of land within X miles of a sensitive area. Buy back or expropriate any of these lands.
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Sadly, these simple suggestions will be ignored by the villainous political parties, both Democrat and Republican. I've said it before, but I'd most definitely vote for a VDH and Jack Fowler ticket in 2024 with Sami as Secretary of State!
One thing more. Obviously our U.S. corporations in the past have shown they care more about making money than doing something patriotic (e.g., Apple helping China surveil its own people); also lest not forget Nike. So, they must be made to pay a stiff price for continuing to manufacture in China. They of course will fight back with their lobbyists. What 2024 presidential candidate is proven to be tough enough to stand up to such corporate pressure? Only, one, Donald J. Trump. All the others are "maybes". This is too important (time is running out) to risk on "maybes", when you have a "sure thing". Vote TRUMP!
Excellent point about buying less from China. I see this as great leverage we have over them. Incentivize our corporations to look elsewhere to have their products made. Make them in the U.S., or with friendly countries that will not extort us in time of crisis, or war. This shift must be done with some sensitivity, though. We want the CCP to change, but do we really want to to topple? As Chinese unemployment sours due to their decreased manufacturing business with U.S. corporations, this would happen. It is bound to create internal unrest. If this unrest was intense enough it could provoke a full blown civil war, one would think. Is that in the interest of the U.S. and the Free World? Imagine a country of 1.3 billion people and mucho nuclear weapons having a civil war? How about just pressuring them to change. To dial back their imperialism, and threats to Taiwan. How about honoring the treaty with Hong Kong? etc. etc.
The major problem of global commerce, that is the build out of vast supply chains, is that countries are often held hostage to other countries in that supply chain. It becomes difficult to cut off the bad actors who are stealing your fruit when they live next to your farm. Rebuilding one's industrial bases is expensive, it consumes a lot of capital and in the end raises the consumer prices for goods. On the other hand we can pursue a national policy of isolation both politically and economically due to our geography. The globalization of the past forty years has produced the misallocation of capital. Where price competition resulted in lower consumer and business costs it came with increasing unemployment in out own labor markets. What do we have to show for all that export of labor intensive work to foreign countries? What was the average price of an automobile in 1975 versus 2015? Today the asset prices are greatly inflated since money/capital must flow to the safe haven of America rather than invested in those foreign companies producing what we are willing to buy and not produce ourselves.
If these recommendations are implemented, and I hope they are, will we not need a very large increase in legal immigration? Would be interested to hear VDH comment on this (he probably already has) and how such legal immigration should be shaped.
Setting aside "... fentanyl as divine nemesis for the 19th-century Opium Wars ... " and "Ditto Mexico" as potential reasons for China and Mexico flooding the U.S. with fentanyl, why would those who profit so handsomely from sales of fentanyl want to kill their customers? To mangle the metaphor a bit, are they not killing the goose that is laying (or injecting, snorting, swallowing) the golden egg? The C.C.P. may be that malicious and also acutely aware of the 19th-century Opium Wars, but they are also greedy mercantilists. The Mexican cartels do not seem to be great students of history despite radical La Raza literature. They seem to be living for the money and for the moment hence their total disregard for human life. Why kill your customers when you're as greedy as they both seem?
Glad to see your Three Simple Suggestions. My mom always said if one has criticisms; one should offer positive suggestions.
The fact that the uniparty hasn’t followed your practical sage advice shows they’re all in on the scams have to be bought off
Although I would go more nuanced re Chinese students in the U.S., otherwise I am entirely in agreement on these recommendations.
Because some countries are aligning with China and Russia, the US needs to determine which countries will remain our friends. Mexico is playing both sides of the field, taking advantage of the economic benefits from both China and our country. Not only illegals from Mexico, but peoples from all over the world are coming across the Mexican border. Mexico is doing nothing to keep other foreign nationals from using their country as a spring board to come into the US. I agree with your financial penalties we should impose on China and Mexico. On an individual level we could limit our buying of Chinese made products. I've tried very hard over the past 3 years, since the unleashing of Covid on the world, to not buy things that are produced in China. It's a personal choice to preserve what we have left of our country.
Just do it!
Perhaps the Biden Family is getting "10%" of Mexican/Chinese cartel activities? There is really no other credible explanation. Ideology is the ruse!