ATLANTA — U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen will be in Atlanta on Thursday to announce new measures fighting fentanyl trafficking by the federal government.

The Treasury Secretary will speak alongside U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Ryan K. Buchanan and regional law enforcement partners.

After the announcement, Yellen is expected to hold a roundtable with law enforcement agencies and bank officials to discuss ways to work together to disrupt illicit drug trafficking, according to the Treasury Department.

The new enforcement actions to combat fentanyl trafficking in the United States follows years of the illicit drug’s rising impact as a cause of death, nationally.

While the most recent data on drug overdose deaths show a decrease in 2023, the first time in five years according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl remains the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45.

That rank prompted new warnings from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, with the agency saying that more than 107,000 deaths in the past year had been from fentanyl overdoses.