Tag: tariffs

Is the Fentanyl Crisis a Red Herring?

Is U.S. drug treatment both so insufficient and inefficient that higher guacamole prices are the only solution to the Fentanyl crisis?

President Trump has claimed 3-hundred thousand (300,000) Americans die of fentanyl overdoses annually.

But – huh? A question: Where is this mountain of corpses? Is this certified by any coroner, anywhere?

The official number of deaths (73,654 in 2022) reportedly dropped in 2023, and the data from 2024 is not yet available.

So, a discrepancy prompts this question: Is the media buying and perpetuating this crisis without raising proper doubt and inquiry?

The second question?

And so, it is worth asking again: Is raising the cost of an avocado, much less disrupting world trade, sufficient to stem this epidemic?

Maybe a third question?

Is U.S. drug treatment both so insufficient and inefficient that higher guacamole prices are the only solution to the Fentanyl crisis?

It is an indisputable fact: There have been catastrophic drug epidemics in the United States dating back to the Civil War, featuring a rotating menu of morphine, heroin, cocaine, barbiturates, and marijuana, again and again, over and over.

Another fact, courtesy of AI: “The U.S. federal government spends significant amounts annually on drug treatment and substance abuse programs. Key figures include:
Federal Substance Use Treatment Spending: The federal government allocates over $1.1 billion annually for drug treatment programs, excluding spending by the Department of Veterans Affairs1.
Opioid Epidemic Funding: Congress has approved $10.6 billion in discretionary spending between 2017 and 2028 to combat the opioid epidemic, with $1.5 billion allocated in 2023 alone for the State Opioid Response program to expand treatment and recovery services3.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA): In FY 2022, SAMHSA received $6.6 billion for substance use prevention and treatment activities, including $3.5 billion for block grants to states and territories7.
These figures highlight the multifaceted approach to addressing substance abuse through healthcare, prevention, and justice system initiatives.”

Let’s take a deeper dive into the avocado dip: Is the assertion that the only way to stave off the fentanyl crisis is to change world tariffs?

Is the fentanyl crisis being hyped for political gain?

Is there no better alternative to helping addicts than to penalize everyone’s wallets?

Is the administration selling a fear – and the media not investigating that sufficiently?

Those seem to be questions worth asking.

Tariffs, Talk, Trump – Trying to Determine Truths in Trade

Two recent stories on the effect of impending Chinese tariffs paint very different pictures. Two complimenting stories offer better depth.

Today’s anecdotal-led NYT story “Trump’s Tariffs Helped Northern Vietnam Boom Like Never Before. What Now?” strikes a note of cautious optimism for the Vietnamese economy based on an anticipated surge in production to avoid tariffs.

Monday’s more analytical China Global South Project’s “Sorry, Vietnam is NOT Going to Be the “Next China” presents a more sober view. Bylined by Eric Olander is the proposition that the US policy-making community’s expectation that Vietnam will emerge as the next China is delusional. Even with the best US intentions, ‘friend-shoring’ won’t cut the Chinese Goliath out of the tariff-trade equation.

Olander’s argument is that Vietnam’s unemployment rate is just 2.27% limiting the number of available workers. He writes VN doesn’t have either the supply chain or logistics network required to replace China and what’s more, so many of the raw materials used by Vietnamese manufacturing come from its northern neighbor.

Damien Cave’s Times story is more encompassing than Olander’s succinct analysis, but both are well-worth reading to gain a far deeper understanding among the hype, hope, and reality and to appreciate the complex global implications.