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President Donald Trump got slammed by all sides -- Democrats, the media and European politicians -- for suddenly escalating economic war with China on Friday. But for Americans who have lost a family member or friend to the Chinese-made street drug fentanyl, Trump's harsh pivot is the right move.

He hiked tariffs on Chinese goods, labeled President Xi Jinping an "enemy" and told U.S. companies manufacturing in China to pull out. Wall Street went into a tailspin, and partisans called Trump "unhinged."

By Monday, Trump had changed his tone, in response to friendly overtures from China. But the reality is that harsh words and economic threats are what's needed. China has been waging chemicalwarfare against us for several years, flooding our neighborhoods with poison.

In the last three years alone, fentanyl and similar synthetic opioids manufactured in Chinese labs have killed 79,000 Americans. That's more than the American combatants killed in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq combined. And like those combatants, most fentanyl victims are young.

Chinese-made narcotics started showing up on our streets in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Each year, overdose deaths soared, but the Obama administration never confronted China to stop its deadly assault.

Trump is fighting back. Instead of soldiers and bullets, he's using tariffs and other economic sanctions. How civilized of him. "We're losing thousands of people to fentanyl," Trump told reporters Friday night. "This is more important than anything else that we're working on."

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