There has been a significant and widely discussed reduction in the amount of fentanyl seized at the U.S. border, particularly along the Southwest border with Mexico, in early 2025. This trend marks a sharp departure from previous years, which saw record increases in fentanyl seizures and related overdose deaths.
Between January and April 2025, authorities seized approximately 3,159 pounds of fentanyl at U.S. borders, which is 48% less than what had been seized by the same point in 2024.
The Washington Post struggles to credit the results to anything other than the border enforcement policies of President Donald Trump, as well as his administration’s efforts to curtail the illegal trade of this addictive opioid.
The White House says the drop is “thanks to President Trump’s policies empowering law enforcement officials to dismantle drug trafficking networks.” Yet the decline started before Trump took office in January. (While officials only manage to detect part of the fentanyl crossing the border, the figure serves as a proxy for supply).The contraction represents something of a mystery, say antidrug agents and researchers. Are Mexican cartels producing less fentanyl? Or have they simply found new ways to sneak it across the border? Fentanyl is still cheap and widely available in the United States, according to analysts and drug enforcement agents….U.S. seizures at the Mexican border are down almost 30 percent for the first half of this fiscal year, compared with the same period in 2024. They have shrunk by even more since the first half of 2023 — from 13,804 pounds to 6,749 pounds. (Those numbers are for the first six months of each fiscal year, which starts in October).“One cannot deny there is a big drop,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies the fentanyl crisis. “How long it’s going to last is the critical thing.”
The data is heartening. However, the presentation of the facts left a lot to be desired.
In fact, the report has been widely ridiculed.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt derided The Washington Post article.
“This administration’s strong border policies are the reason there has been a decrease in fentanyl trafficking.”“His strengthened relationship with Mexican President Sheinbaum and all of the measures he has been taking to deter illegal human and drug trafficking at our United States southern border is the reason for plummeting fentanyl seizures at the U.S. Border.”“There is NOTHING mysterious about that, and we’d like to see The Washington Post update their headline accordingly.”
The comments were scathing.
The good news is that the trends look more positive than they have in a long time. Provisional data from the CDC show a significant decline in overall drug overdose deaths in the United States for 2024, with a decrease of nearly 27% compared to 2023. Overdose deaths involving opioids—including fentanyl—fell from an estimated 83,140 in 2023 to 54,743 in 2024, marking the lowest annual drug overdose death total since 2019.
With Trump’s continued emphasis on border security and pushing back on cartel operations, the numbers will continue to improve.
And when they do, I bet The Washington Post will still remain mystified.
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