Additionnally, if cartels can't smuggle drugs through the border, they'll build fentanyl shops inside the USA.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Yuma-Reveals-How-Migrant-Surge-Has-Fu...
"..they'll build fentanyl shops inside the USA..."
US law-enforcement would love this to happen. Damn easy to get a court order and bust up. Damn easy to setup informants to reveal such locations. Its like comparing peanut impacts versus asteriod impacts. You solve the critical asteroid problem first. The peanuts don't really make any significant difference.
The 115th United States Congress: Senate majority - Republican, House majority - Republican, Presidency - Republican.
Blame the party not in power.
Further, there's only so much an admin can focus on and they had a variety of other issues. My point stands which is that one party is very focused on this issue and worked towards concrete measures against it, while the other worked against them.
"... Mexico — which has just one gun store and issues fewer than 50 gun permits a year "
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/08/25/americ...
The war on drugs is great for US gun-manufacturers.
US has a drug-problem. Mexico has a cartel-problem. I think Mexico's problem might be worse, because everybody suffers from criminals ruling the country.
We have plenty of ideas. The most obvious one is to begin controlling the areas of the border through which these drugs are entering the country.
Unfortunately that would require an admission by the current US administration that there is a catastrophic crisis at the southern border - one encompassing human, financial, drug, cartel, Chinese, terrorist, human trafficking, and a myriad of other elements. This harsh admission of reality is a current impossibility for the Biden administration and US Democrats.
And just to be clear, the southern border isn't the only point of entry, but it is the largest and most elaborate. There is an entire industry set up exclusively for opioids. Ignoring the human trafficking, slavery, coyotes, and other elements: just the fentanyl trade alone involves at least two cartels, and an international supply chain that includes India, China, and MexicoS[1][2]. The US would be the fourth sovereign participant in that it facilitates a degree of free trade that would make anyone else incredibly jealous.
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[1] https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-... Note this is from 2020, and as predicted, the bulk of fentanyl did in fact shift to entering through Mexico, even if the precursors arrive from China and India to Mexico.
[2] https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/briefing-senate-foreign...