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The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) will ratchet up the Trump administration's crackdown on highly addictive fentanyl flowing from China, building on President Donald Trump’s ongoing effort to stop the flow of the illicit drug that has devastated U.S. communities.
"President Trump is leading the toughest fentanyl crackdown in American history — and it’s going to save lives," Republican Kentucky Rep. Andy Barr told Fox News Digital. "While past Presidents like Joe Biden allowed adversaries to flood the U.S. with deadly fentanyl, President Trump is taking the fight directly to the drug cartels and their Chinese suppliers."
Trump signed the NDAA into law Thursday, which includes provisions from Barr’s legislation, H.R. 747. The provisions amend the existing Fentanyl Sanctions Act to expand the definition of "foreign opioid trafficker" to include Chinese entities and officials involved in the opioid industry who fail to stop trafficking.
The NDAA is a roughly $901 billion package that includes defense policy unlocking funding for several of the Trump administration’s national defense priorities, including regarding decades-old war authorities, strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, Ukraine, lifting sanctions and Washington, D.C.’s, airspace.
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A signed executive order is displayed behind President Donald Trump during a Mexican Border Defense medal presentation in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. (Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Under the provision, designated entities could face sweeping financial penalties and visa bans, which would effectively cut them off from the U.S. financial system.
"I’m proud to stand with him, which is why I led the Stop Chinese Fentanyl Act, legislation heading to his desk this week to sanction anyone in China producing illegal fentanyl used in drug trafficking," added Barr, who is running for the Senate in Kentucky to replace retiring longtime Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell. "More than half the fentanyl that comes into our country comes from China and 70% of overdoses involve fentanyl. We are sending a clear message to China: if you manufacture fentanyl that kills Americans, there will be consequences."
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Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., smiles during a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The defense spending budget comes the same week Trump signed a historic executive order declaring illicit fentanyl and its precursor chemicals as weapons of mass destruction. The order stated fentanyl is "closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic," noting that just two milligrams can kill someone.
"Today, I'm taking another step to protect Americans from the scourge of deadly fentanyl flooding into our country," Trump said from the Oval Office Monday of the executive order. "With this historic executive order I'm signing today, we are formally classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction — because that's what it is."
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Trump campaigned in-part on ending the flow of illicit drugs from foreign nations pouring into the nation, most notably fentanyl from China, as well as from South and Central America.
The opioid crisis has devastated U.S. communities stretching back decades, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting that an estimated 806,000 people died from an opioid overdose between 1999–2023. The opioid crisis under the Biden administration cost the U.S. $2.7 trillion in 2023 alone, when considering costs related to loss of life, loss of quality of life, loss of labor force productivity, crime and costs to the healthcare system, according to a report published by the Council of Economic Advisers earlier in 2025.
"Our country is being poisoned from within by the drugs and by all the other crime that's taking place," Trump said in 2023 as the election heated up. "The drug cartels are waging war on America, and it's now time for America to wage war on the cartels."
A Fentanyl vial is seen on March 4, 2025, in Shanghai. (VCG/Getty Images)
Since September, the administration has launched at least 28 strikes on suspected narco-trafficking boats from Venezuela. The administration has defended strikes, which have killed dozens of suspected drug criminals, on suspected narco-boats as protecting the U.S. from cartels looking to "poison Americans" with opioids.
Democrats have increasingly taken issue with the strikes, including a pair of strikes on Sept. 2 against an alleged drug boat from Venezuela. The White House confirmed the military carried out an initial strike on the boat before firing off a second that killed two suspected traffickers, sparking Democrats to claim the administration committed potential war crimes.
The defense budget was passed by a bipartisan vote in both the house and Senate, though left-wing lawmakers such as Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have railed against the bill.
"We are spending $1 trillion every year on the military. That's more than the next NINE nations combined," Sanders said on X Thursday. "Meanwhile, millions lack health care & we have the highest childhood and senior poverty rate of almost any major country. Congress needs to get its priorities straight."
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Fox News Digital's Alex Miller contributed to this report.
