> How would the US possibly strengthen the Mexican Government though, barring massive investment?

Not creating uncertainty by constantly threatening to pull out of NAFTA would be a good start. Helping to strengthen Mexico's economy was once a mainstream republican position seen to mutually benefit both countries. [1]

[1] Excerpt on illegal immigrants from Regan/Bush 1980 primary debate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmgPp_nlok

> Not creating uncertainty by constantly threatening to pull out of NAFTA would be a good start.

Not that I think such an action would be a good idea, or that threatening it is either, but what about the previous 20 years of NAFTA make you believe that it’s strengthening the Mexican state?

It's a general impression from years of reading newspapers. I'm not an expert, I haven't worked out the probabilities of what Mexico would be like without NAFTA, and there are dozens of other confounding factors such as corruption, competition from Asia, war on drugs, innovation-stifling industrial policy (see Carlos Slim's fortune) etc..

I was more focusing on the uncertainty created by the unclear messages from Washington, which does materially delay investment and confidence within Mexico, and makes it harder for the state to focus on defeating the cartels. Though I do believe that trade generally has a positive impact on economies as a whole.

Let Mexico take the manufacturing the US doesn't want -- heavy industrial, low wage, quick turn assembly. You get to cut China/SE Asia, boost Mexico, and provide a competitive advantage to US business.

Imagine if Mexico had the manufacturing capability of China, plus a growing middle class, fueled by no-education-necessary manufacturing jobs.

As a business, you don't have to deal with BS joint ventures, no time zone delay, no 3mo ship journeys, etc. The US is more than capable of boosting Mexico to this state.

> Imagine if Mexico had the manufacturing capability of China, plus a growing middle class, fueled by no-education-necessary manufacturing jobs.

More excessive pollution? We don't need another China.

End US crop subsidies. Small Mexican farmers can't compete with large, mechanized, subsidized operations in the US. Subsequently they aren't working paying taxes.

This would also be a boon to agricultural nation's in Africa.

Would that result in a higher price for food (something everyone needs to survive), and end up hurting more people than it helps?

A thesis I've been hearing a lot about recently goes something like the following. It doesn't speak directly to subsidising food production costs, but is related to the same idea - what is wrong with cheap and plentiful food?

Here is the thesis:

----

Ongoing food and clothing donations to countries in need cause more harm than good.

While short term donations are able to help bridge emergency situations, such as after a natural disaster, ongoing donations lead to dependence.

Local producers of food and clothes are unable to compete with free, donated goods, and so switch their production to other goods or stop producing altogether.

If and when the supply of donated goods runs out, the country has already lost their ability to provide for themselves.

Thus, when supplying aid to countries in need, it is essential to promote local independence in addition to filling their immediate need, taking care to avoid the creation of a dependency.

It's basically just the same problem as with the predatory pricing strategy called "dumping". You price your product below your cost to produce it to make your competition go out of business, then you can raise prices to exploit your monopoly position.

In kind food aid is essentially unintentional predatory pricing.

Yes, it's almost exactly the same mechanism.

I think the big difference is that people, intending wholeheartedly to do good and help these countries, instead cause significant damage.

Things like this are one of the reasons I find the Gates Foundation's way of working so interesting. They spend a lot of time and effort, supported by a lot of money, to help entire societies to improve. Things like enabling women to take control of their own reproduction, which has a huge stabilising effect on an economy. Moving the needle on that issue takes a significant amount of work, and is much harder than simply sending aid.

The problem with this is of course, that it is expensive and takes time.

Often countries really do need aid, and fast. If people remain willing to send aid, it's a hard sell to say "actually, we don't want that free food, thanks", not least of all because they might need more aid in the future!

Ah, so that's sort of like what I've always heard about using bird feeders -- that the birds will get dependant on it, and if you stop filling them, a lot of birds will die off.

Food subsidies are a transfer payment to the people buying food. But the theory is that subsidies create waste - resources are diverted to creating food that wouldn't be if it were unsubsidesed.

The economically honest change would be to cut the subsidy, give out a welfare payment of a similar amount, and then let the market sort itself out. Nobody is a net loser, but the economy can reallocate resources out of farming if it wants. In this case, presumably foreigners would pick up food production and the Americans would go build infrastructure or something instead of farm.

I dunno how feasible the politics is, but that is the basic "everyone wins" case. Arguably the farmers might be worse off because they have to find something else to do.

Decriminalize other drugs.

Dude, seriously that seems like a terrible idea. We already have an issue with legitimate drugs.

Additionally the original argument was that cartels will seek out whatever means they can to make money.

It'll just shift their efforts towards other money making schemes, ie human trafficking or kidnapping and ransom.

But those avenues are far less profitable than drugs, and easier to stop.

Lets look at a historical example, after prohibition did human trafficking and kidnapping jump up enormously because the gangs were going to make money somehow?

Or did the number of violent crimes and influence of gangs drop off because there wasn't a huge river of cash flowing into their pockets afterwards?

Sure we have an issue with legitimate drugs. Decriminalizing will not stop our drug problem, but it will reduce our, and especially mexico's crime problem. And I, and I bet all of north mexico would rather have a drug problem than a crime problem. (For one drug's only directly affect the user, but crime affects everyone)