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Tablets believed to be laced with fentanyl are displayed at a Drug Enforcement Administration lab in 2019 in New York.

President Donald Trump has vowed to combat the drug overdose crisis in the United States, and he has demanded that Mexico, Canada and China crack down on fentanyl smuggling, citing the deadly drug as a key reason for imposing tariffs this week on our three biggest trading partners. I agree with Trump that we are facing a fentanyl crisis, with tens of thousands of people in the U.S. dying from drug overdoses each year, but there’s a much better way to fight this scourge.

Nearly three years ago, a counterfeit prescription medication laced with fentanyl took the life of my beloved 30-year-old son, Cory Lee Crews. Cory thought he was buying the prescription drug Percocet to manage his back pain, but it turned out that the pill he ordered online through a common e-commerce app was a fake medication mixed with fentanyl that was shipped to his home directly from China – all thanks to a little-known and dangerous trade loophole called “de minimis.” On the night of July 16, 2022, Cory lay down next to his sleeping 2-year-old daughter hoping for back pain relief, and he never awoke, leaving three daughters without a father.

The obscure de minimis trade rule allows packages valued at $800 or less –........

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