Trump during his address to Congress said that Canada and Mexico ‘have allowed fentanyl to come into our country at levels never seen before.’

Howard Lutnick told CNBC “hopefully Mexico and Canada will have done a good enough job on fentanyl” that the U.S. will focus only on reciprocal tariffs.

President Trump said Mexico and Canada must do more to stop the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. A bootleg version of the synthetic opioid, largely produced by Mexican cartels, has created a public health overdose crisis in the U.

The president has launched a trade war seeking to quell the flow of illegal immigrants and the illegal trafficking of drugs and rebalance trade.

During his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Donald Trump falsely linked tariffs against Canada and Mexico to

While President Donald Trump has said the tariffs are meant stop the flow of drugs across the border, experts worry it may undermine progress already underway.

The decrease in fentanyl overdoses, drug policy experts have said, has more to do with public health measures than changes in border policies.

"American importers pay the tariffs and then do everything they can to pass that cost on to American consumers," John Bolton said.

If tariffs are a poor method of collecting revenue or strengthening trade, they're even less effective at stopping the flow of illegal drugs.