Drug czar Sara Carter says cartels have been forced to find ways to diversify their income because President Trump has shut down the southern border and disrupted drug-running routes.
Those new revenue streams include oil smuggling, scamming time-share owners and even trafficking jellyfish and exotic animals.
“They diversify. They move their money into the most bizarre areas and it is to launder the drug money — hundreds of billions of dollars,” Ms. Carter said on The Washington Times’ “Sitdown with Alex Swoyer” podcast.
A former reporter for The Washington Times and Fox News, Ms. Carter is now operating inside the government, having been tapped by Mr. Trump to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
That puts her in combat with the cartels, which are struggling to shore up their finances amid anti-smuggling operations directed by the president.
Ms. Carter said the Trump administration’s success in border security has helped immensely.
“We have completely sealed our border, nearly 2,000 miles with Mexico, so it gives our law enforcement officers to really hyper focus on fentanyl, on drugs, rather than the human trafficking aspect that we were dealing with,” she said.
She said the border was left “wide open” under the Biden administration, with people and drugs being trafficked across the boundary.
But the number of illegal immigrants crossing is down sharply, and Ms. Carter said deaths caused by the synthetic opioid fentanyl are also dipping since their peak several years ago.
Methamphetamine smuggling is also down, though cocaine trafficking has seen a resurgence.
Part of the administration’s targeting has included kinetic attacks on drug boats believed to be carrying cocaine in and around South America toward the U.S. The Trump administration, through Operation Southern Spear, has destroyed more than three dozen such vessels.
Addressing the demand side of the drug trade, Ms. Carter said the administration is working to reduce the number of U.S. users.
Through the Great American Recovery Initiative, launched this year by the president via an executive order, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kathryn Burgum, wife of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, are using a $100 million investment to help treat those suffering from substance use disorder.
Ms. Carter said the recovery initiative is forming partnerships with a wide range of organizations, including religious denominations.
She said the effort is getting priority treatment in a way that previous administrations hadn’t implemented.
“This is the first time — at least for me and I’ve been here since Bush covering different administrations, watching how they operate — but this is the first time where where I really feel like I can pick up the phone and contact the DOJ if I need something really quick. I can reach out to [Director] Kash Patel at the FBI. I can talk to Secretary Kennedy. I can contact Kathryn Burgum — like we talk to one another, we work together,” Ms. Carter said.
“This is a whole of government approach unlike anything I have ever seen,” she said. “This is the one time under President Trump where I truly believe because of his leadership and because of this administration that we are going to make the most effective changes, long lasting — far beyond this administration — legacy changes.”
