By Paul Martin, Founder and CEO, United Against Fentanyl
Yesterday, I spoke with a woman named Leah Wread DeVere. Her voice carried the weight that has become all too familiar in my work. Her son Cory thought he was buying the prescription drug Percocet to relieve his back pain. In actuality, the pill he ordered online through a common e-commerce app was a fake pill mixed with fentanyl.
It was in 2022 when the order arrived at his home in Georgia directly from China. In a recent article, she described it this way: “Cory lay down next to his sleeping 2-year-old daughter hoping for back pain relief, and he never awoke, leaving three daughters without a father.”
Cory’s death connects to a larger, more sinister pattern that extends beyond our borders.
Under the current de minimis trade provision (in federal law known as Section 321), packages valued under $800 can enter the country without inspection, creating a significant vulnerability that drug traffickers have exploited to flood American communities with lethal fentanyl. Experts and advocates argue that shutting down this loophole is critical in preventing further fentanyl-related deaths.
Approximately four million such packages cross our borders daily from China—a country whose government allows a form of chemical warfare against American communities while systematically abusing its citizens.
China’s human rights record tells a devastating story that parallels our fentanyl crisis. The Chinese Communist Party operates concentration camps in Xinjiang, where over a million Uyghurs face forced labor, sterilization, and cultural genocide. These same power structures that oppress their people now export death to American doorsteps.
The precursor chemicals flowing into America originate from the same government that crushes democratic freedoms in Hong Kong, threatens Taiwan with military aggression, and maintains the world’s most sophisticated surveillance state to control its population. Their industrial-scale censorship silences dissent while their chemical factories produce the substances killing our children.
Ray Donovan, former Chief of Operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration and UAF Advisory Board Member, offers a sobering assessment: “The de minimis exemption has become a dangerous loophole, fueling fentanyl trafficking and devastating communities across America. With over 1 billion de minimis shipments entering the U.S. annually, many are unchecked. Criminal networks exploit this system to flood our streets with illicit drugs. Customs and Border Patrol’s proposed regulatory changes are a step in the right direction, but more must be done to close this gateway for drug traffickers. Every day of inaction means more lives lost to fentanyl poisoning. Congress and the administration must act swiftly to tighten enforcement, increase oversight, and shut down this deadly pipeline before more families are torn apart.”
When examining the fentanyl crisis, we cannot separate China’s deliberate exportation of deadly chemicals from its broader pattern of human rights violations. Both represent a fundamental disregard for human dignity.
Chinese authorities have repeatedly promised to regulate fentanyl production and the export of precursor Chemicals to Mexico. This mirrors their pattern of making empty diplomatic promises about human rights while intensifying oppression behind closed doors.
In a letter last week to President Trump, UAF joined the Coalition to Close the De Minimis Loophole, representing a wide range of American voices and millions of people committed to ending the de fentanyl crisis, including families of victims, manufacturers, business associations, labor unions, law enforcement, and consumer groups.
The President’s February 1 executive order making Chinese imports ineligible for de minimis treatment represented a step toward accountability. Days later, another order reinstated it. This inconsistency costs American lives while enabling a regime that systematically violates human rights.
The human toll devastates countless families daily. About 200 Americans—mostly young people—die each day from fentanyl. Behind each statistic stands a family like Leah Wread DeVere’s, forever altered by a preventable tragedy facilitated by a government that treats both foreign and domestic lives as expendable.
The week before Cory was poisoned, Leah told me he surprised his beloved mother with a new tattoo.
Deadly deliverables from China transcend politics. They demand a coherent response that addresses the immediate threat to American lives and the broader human rights concerns. We cannot separate these issues—they flow from the same source.
The solution demands clarity and courage: Close the de minimis loophole. Hold China accountable for both fentanyl exports and human rights abuses. Recognize these challenges as interconnected facets of a government that systematically devalues human life.
How many more American families must plan funerals before we act? The time for half-measures has ended.
