THE WHITE HOUSE's latest

The White House • March 19, 2019 Ending the worst drug crisis in U.S. history Six months before Donald J. Trump was elected President, a group of health experts wrote a private letter with “an urgent plea” to senior officials in the Obama Administration. “Thousands of people were dying from overdoses of fentanyl — the deadliest drug to ever hit U.S. streets — and the [Obama] administration needed to take immediate action. The epidemic had been escalating for three years,” The Washington Post reported last week. “The administration considered the request but did not act on it.” When President Trump took office 8 months later, the opioid crisis was devastating communities across the country. Nearly 64,000 Americans died from a drug overdose in 2016 alone. Opioid overdoses accounted for more than 42,000 of these deaths—more than any previous year on record. In October 2017, President Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. And one year ago today, he introduced the Initiative to Stop Opioid Abuse, a historic effort to cut off the illicit drug supply and drive down demand in the United States. The results should give all Americans hope: During the President’s first year in office, 68 percent fewer Americans over the age of 26 began using heroin than during the previous year.   In July 2017, the Department of Justice shut down the country’s biggest Darknet distributor of drugs. That same Fiscal Year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took more than 2,300 pounds of fentanyl off the streets.   The Trump Administration’s public awareness campaign highlighting the dangers of opioid abuse has been seen by 58 percent of young Americans and 1.4 billion viewers in total.   “We will liberate our country from this crisis,” President Trump said last year when he unveiled his initiative. “And we will raise a drug-free generation of American children.” Under this President, the carnage of America’s worst drug crisis will not be ignored. President Trump’s nationwide call to action to end our opioid crisis. By the numbers: How President Trump is helping America recover Watch President Trump host Brazil’s new leader Today, President Trump welcomed the recently elected President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, to the White House. President Bolsonaro’s election marked a historic opportunity for the United States and Brazil—the two largest democracies in the Western Hemisphere—to build a new partnership focused on increased prosperity, strong security, and national sovereignty. Perhaps most important, Brazil is a crucial ally in President Trump’s stand against the corrupt, socialist Maduro dictatorship in Venezuela. President Bolsonaro reiterated that Brazil stands with Venezuelan Interim President Juan Guaido, as well as with the democratically elected National Assembly and the Venezuelan people in their fight against tyranny. “The twilight hour of socialism has arrived in our hemisphere,” President Trump said from the Rose Garden this afternoon. “And hopefully, by the way, it’s also arrived—that twilight hour—in our great country.” “I have always admired the United States of America,” President Bolsonaro added. “And this sense of admiration has just increased after you took office.” Watch President Trump: “We have a truly historic chance.” More: The full joint statement from the two leaders Photo of the Day Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour President Trump and senior Administration officials receive an update in the Oval Office on the President’s Initiative to Stop Opioid Abuse | March 19, 2019 President Trump Visits The Last Tank Plant In America, Which He Helped Save Today, President Donald J. Trump visits the Army’s sole surviving tank plant in Lima, Ohio, “the first such presidential visit there since George W. Bush stopped by in 2003,” Loren Thompson writes in Forbes. “President Obama never visited, and the depressed level of military spending during his presidency nearly shut the place down. That is not an exaggeration,” he adds. “President Trump understands the importance of the work that is done at Lima for the nation’s warfighters and for the workers in the local communities, which is why he didn’t make it to Davos this year but he will be in Lima.” Click here to read more.

“The Trump defense budget is helping to create good manufacturing jobs at good wages, including in communities like Lima that have fallen behind economically. The revitalized Lima plant will directly employ a little more than 1,000 employees,” White House Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro writes in The New York Times. “The president’s bold decision to rescue the Lima plant from the Obama budget sequestration oblivion will reap this nation benefits for years to come.”

Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump “is leading the administration’s latest bipartisan effort, this time to reform federal college education and job training, even for newly released prison inmates,” Paul Bedard reports for the Washington Examiner. “With other bipartisan victories already under her belt, Trump this week turned to improving the Higher Education Act to help more poor students and bolster efforts to steer Americans to trades where the jobs are, including apprenticeships.”

“Border Patrol said that it caught more than 400 illegal immigrants trying to break into the U.S. in El Paso, Texas, during one five-minute span Tuesday morning,” Stephen Dinan reports in The Washington Times. “Officials said most of the migrants were family members or unaccompanied children from Central America, enticed to come to the U.S. by lax policies that virtually ensure their quick release into the community.”

President Trump’s United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) not only replaces and modernizes the decades-old NAFTA—it’s “chock full of provisions that will help American small businesses boost exports and safeguard their intellectual property,” writes Karen Kerrigan, president of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, in the Press and Journal. “Congress needs to approve USMCA as soon as possible.” White House Seeks Ways to Get More People to Work “The White House in a new report highlighted the strength of the labor-force participation rate and pushed for policies to encourage more people to work as millions of baby boomers retire,” Sarah Chaney reports in The Wall Street Journal. Contributing to this stable participation rate: “strong labor demand, shown by 101 straight months of job growth, according to Labor Department data.” Click here to continue reading. “Americans give the nation's economy glowing reviews in a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, and Donald Trump's approval rating may be reaping the benefits,” Jennifer Agiesta reports for CNN. “Overall, 71% say the nation's economy is in good shape, the highest share to say so since February 2001, and the best rating during Trump's presidency by two points.” More: President Trump’s 2019 economic report released this morning “The White House said Monday it wants to reform higher education by imposing ‘common-sense’ limits on how much parents and graduate students may borrow, saying it will pressure institutions to keep tuition down, while extending Pell Grants and the work-study programs to students who want to get skills outside the traditional two-or-four-year college track,” Tom Howell Jr. reports for The Washington Times. Watch: Ivanka Trump says it’s time to modernize higher ed Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Jim Carroll visited the Volunteers of America Mid-States addiction recovery center in Louisville, Lisa Gillespie reports for WFPL. Director Carroll added that another key part of “the Trump Administration’s plan to thwart drug use is the potential wall that would separate parts of the U.S. from Mexico.” “President Trump donated a quarter of his salary to the Department of Homeland Security on Monday and tweeted out a photo of the check to prove it,” Leah Barkoukis reports in Townhall. “While the press doesn't like writing about it, nor do I need them to, I donate my yearly Presidential salary of $400,000.00 to different agencies throughout the year,” President Trump wrote.