United States President Donald Trump thanked Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Wednesday for giving him the idea to launch an anti-drugs campaign, on which he pledged to spend “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Speaking at a Saudi Arabia-backed investment conference in Miami, Trump said he had spoken to Sheinbaum about drugs and she told him that Mexico is not a “consumer nation.”
#ULTIMAHORA. Admite @POTUS que al hablar con la presidenta mexicana @Claudiashein se dio cuenta de la importancia de llevar a cabo una agresiva campaña en contra del consumo de fentanilo para frenar la adicción en EU. @SPRInforma #ClaudiaMuchaPresidenta @canalcatorcemx pic.twitter.com/3HzX3c1EHD
— Jenaro Villamil (@jenarovillamil) February 20, 2025
“I said … why is that? … She said, ‘Well, we have very strong family values,'” he said.
“I said ‘But we do too. We do too.’ … I said, ‘Well, you’re not really saying anything there because we have great families too. We have great family values,'” Trump said.
He noted that Sheinbaum — who he referred to as a “very wonderful woman” — also told him that Mexico spends a lot of money on anti-drug advertising.
“And I said ‘unbelievable.’ That was such a great conversation because we’re going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars advertising how bad drugs are so that kids don’t use them — [we’re going to say] that they chew up your brain, they destroy your teeth, your skin, your everything. And I thanked her for that,” Trump said.
He subsequently said that the U.S. government would launch an anti-drugs campaign “with $100 million and then another $100 million initially.”
“… I saw some of the ads and they are really violent. I said you have to make them strong,” Trump said.
“Your skin practically comes off after a period of time. You lose your hearing. You lose your teeth. … It is terrible, and we show this happening to people,” he said.
“… She really gave me something,” Trump said, referring to the idea Sheinbaum gave him during a call.
“… I was going to call her and tell her that she did, but now I don’t have to call her because she’s going to be seeing this right now. So to the president of Mexico, thank you very much. I appreciate it. … We’re going to do a great advertising campaign saying how bad it is, how drugs are so bad for you,” he said.
Trump didn’t say exactly when he spoke to Sheinbaum about Mexico’s anti-drug advertising campaign.
Sheinbaum said on social media in late November that she had spoken to Trump about “the campaign we’re carrying out in the country to prevent the use of fentanyl.”
The U.S. president has spoken frequently of his commitment to stopping the entry of fentanyl to the United States, and pledged to impose 25% tariffs on all Mexican exports to the U.S. as he seeks to pressure Mexico to do more to stem the northward flow of the powerful opioid. The proposed tariffs are currently paused but could take effect next month.
Although Trump is intent on blocking the entry of fentanyl and combating Mexican drug cartels — six of which are now designated as foreign terrorist organizations in the U.S. — his “sweeping freeze on foreign aid has temporarily stopped U.S.-funded anti-narcotics programs in Mexico that for years have been working to curb the flow of the synthetic opioid into the United States,” Reuters said in an exclusive report last week.
‘Fentanyl kills’: Mexico’s anti-drug campaign
In early January, Sheinbaum officially presented a 300-million-peso (US $14.8 million) “national” and “permanent” anti-drugs campaign under the name “Aléjate de las drogas. El fentanilo te mata” or “Stay away from drugs. Fentanyl kills you.”
No te dejes enganchar! El fentanilo es una droga extremadamente peligrosa. 💊🚫
Incluso una pequeña cantidad puede ser letal. ☠️
¡No arriesgues tu vida!
Si necesitas ayuda, llama a la #LíneaDeLaVida: 📞 800 911 2000.#ElFentaniloTeMata #AléjateDeLasDrogas #EligeSerFeliz pic.twitter.com/PugkXoU0kc
— SALUD México (@SSalud_mx) February 15, 2025
The campaign includes billboards, advertising on television, radio and social media, drug education in schools and other measures. The billboards are especially prevalent in Mexico City.
“Fentanyl kills you. They put it in other drugs to get you hooked. A united family gives you life,” says one ad posted to social media by the Health Ministry.
“[Fentanyl] destroys your muscles and body, causes paranoia and suicidal thoughts, provokes respiratory arrest and heart attacks, kills your neurons and brain. Stay away from drugs, choose to be happy,” says one video advertisement.
On the day the “Stay away from drugs campaign” was officially launched, Sheinbaum asserted that the use of fentanyl “is not really a problem” in Mexico.
While fentanyl is used in Mexico and there have been deaths linked to the powerful synthetic opioid here, “there is not a crisis like there is in the United States,” she said.
“… We don’t want [the overdose crisis] to reach our country, and that’s why we’re starting this campaign against fentanyl,” Sheinbaum said.
The government of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador also ran an anti-drugs campaign, and in early 2023 then deputy health minister Hugo López-Gatell was announced as Mexico’s new addiction prevention “czar.”
The current and former anti-drugs campaigns have faced criticism for a range of reasons, including because of the focus on fentanyl, which — as Sheinbaum has pointed out — is not widely used in Mexico, and because they have allegedly aroused interest in the synthetic opioid among users of other drugs.
“The main drug problem in Mexico is the use of methamphetamines,” the news website Expansión reported earlier this month.
Health Minister David Kershenobich said last month that was “probably” the case, although he said that fentanyl “is the most significant” drug used in Mexico “in the sense of mortality and the harm it causes.”
Mexico News Daily
