2025-03-12
10 分钟The Economist. Hi, it's Alice Su here.
I co-host Drum Tower, our weekly podcast on China.
Here's an article handpicked from the latest edition of The Economist read out loud.
I thought you might enjoy it.
New choppers, boots on the ground, more coordination and increased resources.
These were some of the steps Canada has taken to halt the flow of fentanyl across the border to America,
said the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on March 3.
Just 13g of the stuff was seized by American border authorities in January,
down 97% from the same month in 2024.
Nevertheless, hours later, President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on goods from Canada,
Mexico and China in order, he said,
to force those countries to stop drugs pouring into our country.
Although the number of deaths caused by synthetic opioids in America has begun to fall,
these drugs still claimed almost 75,000 lives in the United States in 2023.
Mr Trump's actions have highlighted a growing worldwide menace.
New classes of illegal narcotics derived not from Afghan poppy fields or Colombian cocoa plants,
but from barrels of chemicals.
The gangs making them are not only cooking up new sorts of drugs with the help of chemists who jet across continents,
they are also innovating across the entire supply chain using the dark web and social media for retailing and drones for logistics.
Still newer technologies like artificial intelligence or autonomous and armed drones will increase the threat posed by these narco innovators as law enforcement agencies struggle to keep up.