I just don’t understand how having a weak and corrupted neighbor makes you as a nation stronger. It seems imbecilic at best, and especially naiive considering the history of free trade agreements between the US, Canada, and Mexico. I think its rather, an issue of competing factors, and because of arcane drug policy, the US has exceptionally weakened its self from an international trade perspective. Having a strong, very close, very large border sharing neighbor with a good manufacturing economy would be great for the US. The less stable they are, the worse the US is.
So I reject your premise. I think ‘they’ have no fucking clue what they are doing and have implemented competing, irrational agendas over the previous 2-3 decades, resulting in a compromising of the Mexican national government, where cartels fill the void because of a dysfunctional state. In fact your premise is so weakly thought out, it can’t possibly be so.