Do you care about fentanyl, New Hampshire? Every year, more than 400 of your fellow Granite Staters die from drug overdoses, mostly from fentanyl.

Nikki Haley promises to keep the fentanyl pipeline open.

You can’t have missed it — she says it at every speech, debate, town hall, roundtable, meet-and-greet, TV interview and casual conversation:

— “We have to kick this where it starts. And that means you go to China and say, ‘We will end all normal trade relations with you until you stop killing Americans.’ We have to be that firm, we have to be that tough.”

— “As president, I will push Congress to revoke permanent normal trade relations until the flow of fentanyl ends. If China wants to start normal trade again, it has to stop killing Americans.”

— “And we will go to China and say, ‘We’re going to end all normal trade relations with you until you stop murdering Americans with fentanyl.’ You watch how fast they fix that.”

Literally none of our fentanyl comes from China. One hundred percent of the fentanyl in this country is made in Mexico and brought in from Mexico. A border wall would end the flow of fentanyl (and opioids and meth) to our country tomorrow. In fact, a wall is the only thing that will end the fentanyl crisis.

But Haley will be damned if she’ll mention Mexico within 50 miles of the word “fentanyl.” Might remind Americans of our wide-open border (which she intends to keep wide open). Fentanyl could walk in wearing a sombrero, trailed by a mariachi band, and Haley would still say it’s from China.

If you care about fentanyl deaths, this is worse than forgetting slavery when talking about the Civil War.

Back in 2015, China did supply fentanyl to the U.S., selling it on the dark web and sending it through the mail. That ended in April 2019, when the Chinese government agreed to ban all forms of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances.

You’d think international chess player Haley would know that. As reported by the U.N. at the time: “April 2019 — China: Announcement to place all fentanyl-related substances under national control.”

Over the next few years, China worked directly with U.S. law enforcement to stamp out the fentanyl trade — sentencing traffickers in PRC courts, seizing a “high number” of precursors bound for the Western Hemisphere, and allowing the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to open offices throughout China.

That’s why, today, instead of overnight mail envelopes from China, fentanyl comes to the U.S. by truck from Mexico.

The Congressional Research Service has repeatedly confirmed that since the 2019 ban, “the direct shipment of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances from China to the United States went down to almost zero.” Similarly, Sam Quinones writes in “The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth”: “China’s role as a provider of illicit fentanyl faded.”

Contrary to global expert Nikki, China isn’t even selling fentanyl precursors to the cartels anymore. At most, Chinese companies are sending them pre-precursors, i.e., chemicals that have other legitimate uses, such as in agriculture and manufacturing. These are substances that aren’t illegal anywhere.

The second biggest supplier of fentanyl pre-precursors is India. How about cracking down on all those Indian immigrants, Nikki?

With her vast knowledge of foreign affairs as student council representative at the United Nations — only Haley seems to think the U.N. is a serious organization — she is apparently unaware that we already have cracked down on China for its involvement in the fentanyl trade.

No reporter ever calls her on it, presumably because they’re as ignorant as she is.

Even if China were still in the business of providing Mexican drug cartels with the precursors, aren’t the cartels maybe a little more to blame? You know — the ones manufacturing fentanyl, packaging it and sneaking it across the U.S. border?

Haley’s weird obsession with blaming China for what Mexico is doing is like Democrats blaming violent crime on carmakers who don’t install anti-theft devices. Kind of makes you wonder, why not mention, you know, the criminals?

The reason is, Democrats like criminals. They hold felons harmless even for violent crimes that are pretty clearly caused by them.

Does Haley like Mexican drug cartels? Or is she simply unaware that the fentanyl problem is a Mexico-is-on-our-border problem? In her case, it’s likely stupidity, but stupidity in the service of our ruling class, which maintains scrupulous neutrality on the value of American lives.

Why did Jeb-exclamation-point call illegal immigration an “act of love,” and his brother George gushily describe illegals as “people willing to risk everything for the dream of freedom”? Why is Biden hauling third-worlders across the border like there’s no tomorrow?

The donor class likes the cheap labor and obviously has no problem with Haley sounding like a nitwit.

China may ignite worldwide pandemics and steal our intellectual property, but if China were wiped off the face of the Earth, 100,000 Americans would still die every year from fentanyl. If we had a wall, the crisis would be over.

We know Trump won’t build it, and now we know that Haley won’t, either. Only Gov. Ron DeSantis will. But do what you want, New Hampshire. The next million fentanyl deaths are on you.

COPYRIGHT 2024 ANN COULTER