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exceeds the pace presently achievable by individual public safety and public health mechanisms. The United States must set an example as a leader in world efforts to counter these criminal organizations and their facilitators and reduce the harms associated with illicit drugs. « « « « « « NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL STRATEGY 85 Reduce the Supply of Illicit Substances through International Engagement National Security and law enforcement agencies at all levels—federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial—work to combat drug trafficking with the goal of protecting Americans from a lethal drug supply contributing to record levels of fatal drug overdoses. However, traffickers continue to refine their methods and adopt new techniques for delivering illicit drugs to our communities. The majority of illicit drugs consumed in the United States are produced abroad by TCOs and smuggled into the country. Large TCOs, wherever they are based, threaten the health and safety of our communities by exposing our citizens to illicitly manufactured substances. These include synthetic drugs, such as fentanyl and methamphetamine, and cultivated drugs like heroin and cocaine. The plentiful supply and widespread availability of high potency illicit drugs fuel drug consumption across all sectors of American society. Large scale national drug markets, especially those containing synthetic opioids, lead to increased overdose deaths and drug use— impacting millions of American families. This drug use also contributes to significant economic costs for individuals and employers. Moreover, drug trafficking sustains vast domestic and international criminal enterprises that fund a range of illicit activities, enable corruption, undermine governance, and have a destabilizing effect on partner nations, as well as create opportunities for malign actors to gain footholds in fragile states and among vulnerable populations. The organization Global Financial Integrity estimated that, in 2014, the manufacture and trafficking of illicit drugs generated some $426-652 billion dollars for TCOs worldwide, more than a third of the total value of transnational organized crime.318 Large and influential TCOs pose a threat to our national security and effectively responding to their illicit manufacturing, trafficking and distribution methods is an Administration priority.7 Countering corruption and its deleterious impact, including its role in facilitating transnational crime, is a core national security interest of the U.S. government. The U.S. must strengthen international partnerships and foster bilateral exchanges to collaboratively address drug-related problems as a shared responsibility. The increasingly dynamic and complex nature of the international illicit drug trade demands enhanced cooperation with international partners that reflects the reality of a globalized supply chain for illicit drugs and their precursor chemicals. In addition to confronting TCOs' illicit drug manufacturing and trafficking activities directly, the U.S. must also pursue the financial enablers of this illicit activity to deny TCOs their ill-gotten proceeds and to disrupt their ability to transfer working capital to fund their range of illicit activities including procuring precursor ingredients, trafficking, bribery, and corruption. A global approach is essential since traffickers exploit national boundaries to insulate their operations and limit the impact of any single nation’s control efforts. 319 These international initiatives will also include a revitalized effort to leverage the significant capabilities of multilateral organizations and frameworks that are able to accomplish actions that no single government can achieve alone. This is true across all drug threats, but 7 See E.O. on Establishing the United States Council on Transnational Organized Crime, particularly for the challenge posed by the synthetic opioids supply chain that stretches around the globe. Four principal lines of international effort are necessary to reduce the supply of illicit substances and decrease the harms caused by these substances in the United States and abroad: • Strengthen foreign partnerships to address drug production and trafficking as a common and shared responsibility. • Obstruct and disrupt financial activities of TCOs that manufacture illicit drugs and traffic them into the United States, including by countering corruption. • Leverage the influence of multilateral organizations and other bilateral relationships to tackle shared challenges related to synthetic drugs. • Protect individuals and the environment abroad from criminal exploitation by those associated with drug production and trafficking. These lines of international effort are complemented by the activities outlined in the Southwest, Northern, and Caribbean Border Counternarcotics Strategies, and by the National Interdiction Command and Control 

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