LIVE: Biden Delivers Remarks at the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats

Good afternoon, everyone. Let me start by thanking all the heads of state, all the leaders, the foreign ministers, who took time during this incredibly busy week to be here today. The exceptional group that's gathered in this room is a testament to the priority that our country's placed on addressing the synthetic drug crisis and the strength of our partnerships. Now, for years, the threat of synthetic drugs has been rising around the world. Methamphetamines in the East, Southeast Asia. Captagon in the Middle East. Tramadol in Africa. And here in the United States, fentanyl, the number one killer of Americans aged 18 to 49. And think about that for just a minute. Not car accidents, not guns, not cancer, not heart attacks. Fentanyl. This is, by definition, a global challenge. People ship precursor chemicals, the ingredients that go into fentanyl, from one country to another. Criminals make them into synthetic drugs and then sell them in a third country. Every country needs to take steps at home to address this challenge, but no single government can solve it alone. So last year, in July, the United States and our partners launched this global coalition to mobilize a coordinated response to the threat of synthetic drugs. We started out with 80 countries. Today, nearly 160 countries and 15 international organizations. Over the last year, we've consulted with more than 1,600 experts from around the world, and together, this coalition has taken concrete steps to make our communities safer, to make our people healthier. We've created an international network for legislators so that they can share best practices and create laws that make it harder for drug traffickers to buy the precursor chemicals or smuggle products across borders. Together, we're tracking and warning law enforcement and health professionals about new trends in drug use. We've trained officials on how to use a new tool that scrapes the Internet and finds people who are illegally selling precursor chemicals and other substances. Members of this coalition are developing new public health measures, whether that's sharing school curriculums, expanding access to naloxone, creating resources for addiction treatment centers. Today, the United States is introducing a new pledge outlining seven lines of effort that will guide our work together for the year ahead on areas like regulating drugs and chemicals, monitoring supply chains, sharing real-time data on drug use. These lines of effort can be tailored to every country and every organization. So we welcome you joining us and pledging your support. In a moment, we'll also hear from several coalition members about their leadership, their commitments, and we'll carry this work forward together. Together, all of our country's efforts add up to a stronger global network, a more effective response to synthetic drug threats. So please, keep it up. We can save lives. We are saving lives. We can protect our communities. We are protecting our communities. And we can make this world we share a little bit healthier and a little bit more secure. Now, it is my honor to introduce a powerful advocate for this work, someone who's spent years building coalitions to deliver on the issues that matter most to people, the President of the United States, Joe Biden. Thank you. All my fellow leaders from nations around the world, thank you for being here. It makes a big difference. A couple of years ago, a father who I got to meet from a small town here in the United States wrote me a letter about his daughter. Her name was Courtney. She was bright and smart. She had a laugh that was contagious and wanted to travel the world. But in high school, she became addicted to pills. Her father eventually brought her to a treatment facility. But his insurance company wouldn't cover the cost. They said, quote, it wasn't a matter of life and death. A month later, Courtney died from a fentanyl overdose. She was just 20 years old. 20 years old. In his letter that he wrote to me, he described life without his child. He said, and I quote, there is no greater pain. There is no greater pain. I told him I know what it's like having lost several children myself, children. There is no greater pain. They still live in your heart, but there's no greater pain. Ladies and gentlemen, that's why we're here. Too many people all across our nation have stories like this. Too many families have suffered unbearable pain and unbearable loss. Opioids are the deadliest drug threat in our history. I've been working in drug control for a long, long time since the days I was a senator. This is the deadliest of them all. For years, too little has been done to beat this threat here at home and around the world. In fact, before I came to office, overdose deaths in our country were increasing by more than 30% year over year. When I became president, I made beating opioid epidemic a central part of the unity agenda, something that our entire nation could rally around and has. Over the last four years, we've turned that agenda into action. My administration made Naloxone, a life-saving overdose reversal medicine, available over the counter. You can purchase it over the counter for the first time. We invested over $80 billion across 50 states to expand access to addiction treatment and support. I issued an executive order that cut cartel leaders off from our financial system, including issuing 300 sanctions. And I've deployed hundreds of advanced X-ray machines to stop the threat of pills and powder coming across our border. Because I want to be clear, this is a national security threat. In July of this year, I signed a national security memorandum and officially recognized that fact, that it's a national security threat. It calls on every part of our government to do more to stop fentanyl and protect our homeland from this threat. But as all of you know, this is a global challenge and requires a global solution. So we established the Trilateral Fentanyl Committee in Canada and Mexico to stop narcotics from crossing our border. I reignited counter-narcotics cooperation with China to increase law enforcement cooperation to tackle the supply chains of precursor chemicals and pill presses. And I directed my team to build this coalition, this global coalition to address synthetic drugs. As all of you here know, this coalition now has, as the Secretary of State said, 150 nations as part of it. As a result of these efforts, more fentanyl has been seized at our border in the last two years than the previous five years combined. In the previous five years combined, nearly 60,000 pounds of fentanyl has been seized. That's enough to kill every single American, many times over. Dozens of major cartel leaders and traffickers are now behind bars. I'm proud to announce, for the first time in five years, overdose deaths are actually coming down across America. The latest data shows a 10% drop. That's the largest decrease on record. Folks, this matters. These aren't just facts and figures, they're families. Families who don't have to bear the loss of a child, a parent, a spouse. Families who are kept whole, but there are too many who are still dying. There's so much more that needs to be done. So my message today is very simple. We can't let up. We cannot let up. Drug manufacturers and cartels continue to adapt their practices, develop new chemicals, move fast to evade our efforts. We have to move faster. They continue to exploit the global supply chains to expand their networks. We've got to cut them off. They continue to fuel violence, corruption, and instability. We've got to protect our people and our communities. That's why I'm calling on every nation here to commit to our new global coalition pledge. This lays out the action we must all take to seize more drugs, stop more cartels, save more lives. I also want to thank the leaders here who are stepping up and launching new initiatives today to advance coalition efforts all across three key areas. First, disrupting supply chain, including production and distribution of illicit drugs. Secondly, detecting emerging drug deaths and increasing information sharing across all our countries. And thirdly, preventing more deaths by treating more people through public health intervention. Increased access to life-saving medication. It's possible. It's about disrupt, detect, prevent, and treat. Together, we're making it clear. Enough is enough is enough. Let me close with this. As leaders, we all have one solemn responsibility. Protect our people from harm. Together, through this coalition, I believe we can do just that. We can disrupt the circle of violence and instability that drug traffickers create. We can get our people the care they need and deserve. We can save lives, but only, but only if we come together and work together. The choices are, but I believe there can be only one answer. We can, we will, and we must. So thank you all for being here. Let's get to work, and I want you to hear from other leaders in this room as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please welcome the Prime Minister of the Italian Republic. Well, Mr. President, dear colleagues, I wish to thank President Biden for promoting this meeting, which is an integral part of the wider action of the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drugs Threat. Italy is an active part and pursues the commitments undertaken within all multilateral contexts, starting within the G7. We oppose the use of drugs, and we will never believe there is a right to use drugs. Instead, there is a duty to act before these substances can cause irreparable damage. We are certain of the increasing need to convey clear messages. Drugs destroy people's lives. All drugs are harmful, and those who claim the opposite deceive people. Institutions must do whatever they can to fight against the production and trafficking of drugs, invest in prevention, and support those who engage in treatment and rehabilitation efforts. The Italian government has strengthened its commitment to countering synthetic drugs, adopting a specific national prevention plan against the diverted misuse of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. We have devised an all-round strategy focusing on specific lines of action, informing at-risk categories and raising their awareness, procuring antidotes, and standardizing laboratory producers, enhancing controls to keep this drug out of the territory and prevent its non-medical use, monitoring the web and activating emergency services in the event of an overdose. Prevention, notably early prevention, remains our point of departure, along with the need to network, because only by networking we can join efforts and encourage the flow of information to protect our citizens' lives. In fact, we rank among the first European nations taking such an initiative, and we can only be proud of this. We are equally proud that this commitment was shared by the G7. We adopted a joint declaration reaffirming our willingness to strengthen international efforts to crack down on drug trafficking, cite illicit proceeds from drug dealing, and prevent addictions, primarily among young people. We also urged all nations affected by drug threats to take appropriate measures against suppliers of precursor chemicals used to manufacture synthetic drugs. In short, a multidimensional and multilevel commitment consolidated over time through good practices. I'm referring to the National Early Warning System for Drugs, activated in 2009 by the Italian Department of Antidrug Policies and operating within the EU Drug Agencies Alert System and the mechanism put in place by individual EU nations. On the one hand, the system quickly identifies phenomena potentially dangerous to public health, linked to the spread of new drugs and new consumption patterns. On the other hand, it conveys alerts involving health protection and promotion structures in charge of activating any required measures. I'm also referring to the know-how and the expertise that the Central Directorate of Antidrug Services and the network of Italian prosecutors driven by our National Anti-Mafia Directorate have provided to police forces and judicial authorities in the nations most affected by drug trafficking within a cooperation framework particularly effective in Latin America. Preventing and networking. This is the winning formula, both inside and outside national borders. I welcome President Biden's proposal and announce Italy's willingness to share its expertise to work together on a joint action plan on early warning system on trafficking and consumption of synthetic drugs including fentanyl. We look forward to getting down to work since the challenge ahead us is the greatest of all. Those who operate in the field of addictions both in terms of prevention and rehabilitation, remind us that when you treat a disease, you either win or lose. But when you treat a person, you can only win. Thank you. Please welcome the President of the Dominican Republic. Dear President Biden, distinguished heads of states and dignitaries, esteemed delegates, ladies and gentlemen, the threat of synthetic drug trafficking knows no borders. Together with our regional partners, the Dominican Republic has developed a modern national strategy on synthetic drugs. In May of this year, we conducted a comprehensive evaluation of our strategy, security protocols and surveillance at airports, ports and borders, allowing us to identify and block prohibited materials intended to produce narcotics. Likewise, we have increased investment in key infrastructure to effectively tackle this phenomenon and pursue this criminal impulse. The most recent data is encouraging and confirms that we have strengthened our efforts to combat drug trafficking and transnational organized crime, specifically in the realm of synthetic drugs. For example, just this past week, a joint operation between Dominican and U.S. law enforcement agencies dismantled a powerful international drug trafficking network. The effectiveness of this effort is evident by the drug seizures between 2020 and 2024, 148,826 tons in four years. During my administration, the annual average drug seizure has been 38,160 tons, compared to just 4,845 in the previous 16 years, eight times more per year. The preventive actions that we have implemented have been decisive and effective. In this process, we have benefited from the invaluable cooperation from the United States and Mexico, allies that have provided those with resources, expertise, and technical assistance for which we express our deep gratitude. The Dominican Republic commits to co-lead, alongside Belgium, Prime Minister Alexander Dutroux, an initiative aimed at disrupting the maritime transit routes of synthetic drug cartels. Thank you very much. Please welcome the Prime Minister of Belgium. Mr. President, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, when we talk about synthetic drugs, we are talking about worldwide organized crime. And if we want to tackle the supply of drugs, it means that the drug market is a supply market. And if it is a supply market, it means that you need to disrupt the logistics of that supply market. When drugs are available, when it is easy of access, then the demand will rise. But first of all, we need to address the supply. So in a coordinated way, we have set up worldwide barriers to reduce the supply of synthetic drugs. That is why Belgium very much welcomes the launch of the Global Coalition last year, and why we would like to thank President Biden for organizing this important event today. But also we have to address demand. And so when it comes to demand, we should acknowledge that many of our societies face similar problems. Our citizens, particularly our youth, are increasingly using painkillers, tranquilizers, sleeping pills. This is often a stepping stone to the use of synthetic drugs later in their lives. So we should delve deeper into this public health phenomenon. Logistics first measure should include, first of all, limiting access to the sedatives and products by demanding pharmaceutical companies to provide these drugs in smaller doses. And secondly, convincing doctors to limit the prescription of these illegal drugs. Ladies and gentlemen, in Belgium, my government created a national drug agency to coordinate the fight against organized crime and to come up with innovative strategies. Innovation is needed because well-tried methods clearly haven't yielded the desired result. With innovative, inclusive strategies and the establishment of public-private partnerships, we have to limit access to precursors, secure our logistic hubs, and protect the integrity of the people occupying key positions. Belgium also expanded its maritime legal framework to include the fight against organized crime. Belgium is looking to work with coalition partners in setting up a plan to sustainably disrupt maritime and other transit routes through traffic of synthetic drugs and their precursors. As mentioned by my colleague of the Dominican Republic, we will work together on this initiative. And in the first phase, we will, to the maximum, exchange best practices, such as public-private partnerships, the creation of national drug agencies, and enhancing existing legislation on international ship and port facilities to have standards that include organized crime. In the second phase, we will have joint action plans with coalition partners to establish concrete progress on preventing the illicit manufacturing and trafficking of synthetic drugs. Thank you again for organizing the event, and I hope that we will be working intensively together in this domain. Thank you.