Trump declares war on 'foreign, invasive' enemy

From deploying the National Guard and slashing homicides by 30% to beautifying the city's parks and waterways, the Trump administration has been unusually attentive to the nation's only federal district.

On Tuesday, Trump issued an executive order to defeat a new D.C. foe: "foreign, invasive mosquitoes."

'The expanding tick populations in the United States expose Americans, our pets, and our livestock to debilitating and expensive health risks.'

Trump's Eliminating Disease-Carrying Pests and Restoring Enjoyment of the Great Outdoors order aims to reduce the capital's invasive mosquito population by 90% and its tick population by 50% in two years.

The order directs the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the General Services Administration to implement the anti-pest campaign in consultation with the Department of Health and Human Services.

Both novel and well-established interventions are set forth in the order.

Agencies are directed to drain pest breeding grounds on federal land. They are also ordered to "control" the deer and rodent populations responsible for carrying ticks.

The order further directs the EPA to "consider sterilization techniques, safe genetic modification, and use of safe, beneficial bacteria" in alignment with a May 2025 executive order enhancing biological research security.

A similar Singaporean effort has seen remarkable success since launching large-scale operations in 2018.

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Christina House/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Singapore's National Environment Agency released lab-bred male mosquitoes carrying the Wolbachia bacteria into the wild. When Wolbachia-infected males mate with uninfected wild females, the resulting eggs fail to hatch.

Egyptian mosquito populations exposed to the trial fell by nearly 85%, and dengue fever exposure declined by around 70% at the Wolbachia-infected males' release sites.

Though specific plans for a Wolbachia trial have yet to be confirmed, the D.C.-area initiative is designed to serve as the testing ground for future nationwide protocols.

Private companies in D.C. have already begun releasing Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes in the area.

“I was frankly flabbergasted when I read it because of how detailed it was and how much I agreed with what they were proposing,” Bee Safe Mosquito Control founder Todd Montgomery told City Cast DC. “To me, it sounds like they have somebody advising them that really does know what they're talking about, and they're trying to approach it in a really smart way.”

Bee Safe Mosquito Control released 600,000 Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes into the D.C. metro area in 2026.

Google's Debug Project, another Wolbachia-infection proposal, has also applied for experimental pesticide approval with the EPA, according to Politico.

Though the federal mosquito response is just beginning, government funds have already been released for the order's tick-killing component.

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s HHS issued nearly $3 million to two CDC Centers of Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases on Monday. The pilot program will lace deer and rodent bait with acaricide, an anti-tick pesticide, to study its efficacy.

“This effort is designed to move tick control forward by evaluating large-scale deployment of wildlife-targeted interventions,” CDC Division of Vector-Borne Diseases Director Lyle Petersen said in a press release. “The ultimate goal is simple but ambitious: reduce the number of ticks to stop tick bites and tickborne diseases.”

Agencies have until late November to plan and launch their campaigns, "subject to the availability of appropriations."

The EPA, GSA, CDC, and Departments of the Interior and Agriculture did not immediately provide comment.

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