Shortly after President Trump’s inauguration in January, Trump had a call with Mexico's President Peña Nieto. When the infamous wall came up in their conversation, Trump blamed the “drug lords in Mexico” for sending illegal drugs into the United States, TIME reports.
“Up in New Hampshire—I won New Hampshire because New Hampshire is a drug-infested den—[illegal drugs are] coming from the southern border,” Trump told Peña Nieto, referring to New Hampshire’s current opioid crisis. “So we have a lot of problems with Mexico farther than the economic problem. We are becoming a drug-addicted nation and most [of] the drugs are coming from Mexico or certainly from the southern border.”
“But I will say this—you have that problem too. You have some pretty tough hombres in Mexico that you may need help with, and we are willing to help you with that big-league. But they have to be knocked out and you have not done a good job of knocking them out...So we have to work together to knock that out,” Trump added, according to a transcript of the conversation from The Washington Post.
“I fully agree that we should work together," Peña Nieto said, according to the Post. "And let me tell you that a lot of what is happening in terms of traffickers in Mexico is being largely supported by the illegal amounts of money and weapons coming from the United States. And this has led Mexico to fight against criminal gangs with the participation of the military and the entire army of Mexico...I fully agree that both governments can work together to knock out and to do away fully with these criminal gangs.”
However, drugs from Mexico may not be the main culprit, according to the The Washington Post. CDC statistics from 2015 show that heroin, which primarily comes from Mexico and Afghanistan, was not the prominent cause of overdoses in the state. Instead, the synthetic opiate fentanyl, which is now the leading cause of overdoses according to state statistics, is actually primarily produced in China and shipped to the U.S., the Post reports.
In light of the recent release of these transcripts, New Hampshire politicians have been quick to repudiate Trump’s comments regarding their state, TIME reports. “The President is wrong," New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said. "It’s disappointing his mischaracterization of this epidemic ignores the great things this state has to offer. Our administration inherited one of the worst health crises this state has ever experienced, but we are facing this challenge head on.”
So while Trump and Peña Nieto did manage to speak somewhat civilly about the wall, it may not be an effective policy to actually stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States. It might also be wise for Trump to avoid calling New Hampshire a “drug-infested den" in the future, as it does nothing to actually create a policy to combat the state’s drug issue.