President-elect Donald Trump has over the years repeatedly said that migrants entering the U.S. illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country,” words that critics point out are similar to those used by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler when he spoke of Jewish blood “poisoning” Aryan German blood. Trump said he wasn’t aware of Hitler’s words and claimed, “I know nothing about Hitler.”
In December 2023, long before being selected as Trump’s Vice President, Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) defended Trump’s “poisoning the blood of our country” by claiming the phrasing was a reference to overdoses from fentanyl smuggled over the Southern border.
“It is obvious that he was talking about the very clear fact that the blood of Americans is being poisoned by a drug epidemic,” Vance said, though it was not obvious to some, and Trump himself expressed no such clarification.
[Note: Contrasting with Trump’s no-nothing claim, Vance does know about Hitler, at least enough to have reportedly wondered — long before his full conversion to the politics of America First Trumpism — whether Trump was “possibly America’s Hitler” instead of just a useful cynic like Nixon. Vance’s former Yale housemate alleged he wrote: “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical [expletive] like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.”]
It’s important for our friends and neighbors to not let poison into our country. If they fail to meet this basic obligation they’re going to pay up. pic.twitter.com/j9kO4eooE0
— JD Vance (@JDVance) November 26, 2024
This week, in response to Trump suggesting a 25% tariff on all goods coming from Canada and Mexico until the two nations stop “illegal aliens” and drugs including fentanyl from coming to the U.S., Vance again used the “poison” rhetoric, in a way that could be interpreted as referring to the drugs — or the people.
Vance wrote about Canada and Mexico: “It’s important for our friends and neighbors to not let poison into our country. If they fail to meet this basic obligation they’re going to pay up.”
The Director of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Fentanyl Campaign Directorate, Joe Draganac, said the fight against fentanyl requires international collaboration.
He explained: “Much of the problem is that chemicals and tools to make the dangerous drugs are coming into the U.S. from locations such as East Asia through legitimate means – cargo on airplanes, ships and express couriers – and those items many times go to locations in Mexico, where the finished products are made and smuggled across the southwest border.”
Draganac added, “The agency is trying to be active and stop the shipments long before they leave foreign shores.”