For too long, Washington has treated online scams as a consumer protection problem of victims, disputed transactions, and after-the-fact remedies. That frame is too small. The scam epidemic is a national security and law enforcement challenge driven by transnational criminal organizations, permissive foreign environments, illicit financial networks, trafficked labor, and digital infrastructure that lets criminals reach Americans at scale.

The Trump administration has moved in the right direction by focusing on the source: identifying networks, disrupting tools, freezing money, sanctioning enablers, and supporting arrests and prosecutions. As Unleash Prosperity Now argues in a recent report, that approach should be expanded and made permanent.