The decrease in fentanyl overdoses, drug policy experts have said, has more to do with public health measures than changes in border policies.
Howard Lutnick, the U.S. secretary of commerce, said in an interview on Tuesday that the tariffs President Trump imposed on Canada, Mexico and China could be lifted if those countries proved to Mr. Trump that they were stopping the flow of fentanyl and reducing the number of fatal fentanyl overdoses in the United States.
“You’ve seen it: It has not been a statistically relevant reduction of deaths in America,” Mr. Lutnick said on CNBC. “It’s just black and white. And we told them it was outcome based.”
But fentanyl-related overdose deaths have already been steeply declining over the past year, according to preliminary data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the Trump administration promoted just last week.
