Mexico City, Mexico - Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday slammed President Donald Trump for comparing fentanyl to nuclear and chemical weapons in an executive order.

Sheinbaum insisted that the fight against fentanyl should focus on rooting out the causes of the crisis, rather than going after it as a military target that has been labeled a "weapon of mass destruction."

Her comments came after Trump on Monday announced he was placing fentanyl in the same category as nuclear and chemical weapons as he ramps up his campaign of military strikes against boats in the Caribbean and East Pacific.

The White House had described fentanyl as a drug that's "closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic" and insisted that Washington must take drastic steps to "eliminate the threat."

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"I have raised this with President Trump," Sheinbaum told reporters on Tuesday. "The causes of drug use must be addressed, not just this approach of now classifying one of the drugs as a lethal weapon of mass destruction."

Over recent weeks, the Trump administration has been in hot water over its use of military strikes to destroy boats and kill people in Latin America, amid backlash over a September 2 "double-tap" strike seen as a possible war crime.

Many of the vessels Hegseth has been bombing are thought to be transporting cocaine rather than the far-deadlier fentanyl, which is primarily smuggled into the US from Mexico, rather than by boat from Colombia or Venezuela.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported an estimated 80,000 overdose deaths in the country in 2024, with some 48,000 of those due to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.