'The First Step Is Securing Our Border': Alea Nadeem Outlines Plan To Stop Fentanyl

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On "Forbes Newsroom," Ohio Republican Congressional Candidate Alea Nadeem spoke about fentanyl in the United States.

Transcript

00:00President Trump has said that he wants to bring back manufacturing to the United States.

00:04That's part of the reason why he has implemented his tariff policy. Obviously, as you know,

00:11domestic manufacturing can't grow here overnight. So what do you want to see done? What would you

00:16do in Congress to bring back domestic manufacturing? Excellent question. You know, it's a

00:23patience game, right? It took us a while. If you think about it, it took us a while to go to China

00:27and Mexico. It's going to take us a while to get those back. But I think what you have to do is

00:31you have to figure out how to incentivize businesses to come back. One of the things

00:35that I hear with businesses is, well, labor is cheaper. Well, maybe so, but is it right? Just

00:42because you can get cheaper labor, is it right to sell out your own country? So I think we have to

00:46incentivize businesses to come back to the United States. And I think Americans will buy American

00:52made products. It may be a little bit more expensive, but wages will also go up. Once

00:57you have an industrial base that continues to grow and people know it's a safe, right? It's a safe

01:03business, they're going to want to purchase that. I will tell you here, Northwest Ohio,

01:08people love American made. They want American made. They will pay higher prices for American made.

01:14So I think we have a real chance with the tariffs and the combination of things

01:18that the president is doing to turn this back around.

01:21I grew up in Pennsylvania, so I am your neighbor right next door there. And I think that something

01:27that has touched every community in this country, regardless of where it is, regardless of party lines,

01:34is the drug and fentanyl crisis. And President Trump, he has outlined some ways he wants to fight this,

01:41including just last week, his administration announced a $50 million bounty to get the Venezuelan

01:47president. Any information on him that would lead to his arrest? Also, President Trump has said things

01:53like he wants to use tariffs on places like Mexico, China, and Canada as a way to combat the

02:00fentanyl crisis. What else do you think can be done here to solve this problem?

02:06Right. Well, I think one of the things that the president is doing is he's really securing our

02:11border. So you have to think, how is fentanyl coming here? Well, it actually goes from China

02:16to Mexico through the United States. And then you think, how does it end up somewhere in North Ohio?

02:23Like, I mean, it's literally traveling up here. So I think the first thing is you have to secure our

02:27borders. You have to know what's happening. Also, we have to have realistic treatment plans. So fentanyl

02:33is really cheap, right? And it's laced in almost everything. So for example, people are overdosing

02:40at some point accidentally because they're buying maybe some other, you know, like a painkiller,

02:45and it's laced with fentanyl. So I think we have to make sure, how do we actually rehabilitate

02:51these folks? And in the community here, we've had so many overdoses. I hear from so many mothers

02:58who've lost their children or the opposite children who've lost their parents to overdose. So we have to

03:04be really realistic about this. And I think the first step is securing our border and then having

03:10treatment that I call evidence-based and it has a return on investment. We can't keep having the

03:15same programs in place that don't actually decrease fentanyl use. I'm curious what you think that

03:22treatment would look like because like I said, this has touched almost every community and there doesn't

03:28seem as of this second to be, you know, this big one-step cure. So what do you think that treatment would

03:35really look like? Right. So I think the first thing that the reason why people do turn to drugs is

03:41just quality of life, right? So you're seeing, you know, these blue, what I call like the rust belt,

03:46these blue collar areas are hit the hardest because it all ties back to jobs, right? So when you don't

03:52have a job or you don't have a good quality job, it's easy to really get depressed and turn to other

03:57things. So I think one of the first things we have to do is look at jobs, right? The second thing is,

04:03in terms of treatment, you know, I think what we've really looked at is, okay, how long does it take

04:08to get somebody clean and what does that process look like? And I think a lot of it too is,

04:13hey, what is your next step? What's your job? A lot of people just don't have quality jobs or can't

04:17hold a job. So I think a lot of it is tied into work, right? There is dignity in work. So I look at

04:24those two as intertwined together.

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