the real war the US should be fighting
The proper solution is to end the war on drugs, allowing people to do what they will with their own bodies. Once people can legally buy their drugs, the cartels will starve.
Use the money saved from reducing our prison population by 75% to pay for widely-accessible treatment for addiction as well as mental health problems. Build more affordable housing so homelessness is less of an issue. As an added bonus: roll back the last half-century of disastrous trickle-down economics which gutted the middle class, so there's less incentive to start using in the first place.
Reminder: the Nixon tapes reveal that the war on drugs was started in the first place not to protect the public from harmful drugs but rather as a means to criminalize his political enemies (e.g., hippies and black people) in a way that couldn't be challenged in court on 14th amendment grounds.
The problem, of course, is those solutions are hard, it's a lot easier to get voters to root for building more walls and sending troops to kill more foreigners, and there's a lot of money to be made by the military industrial complex and private prison system by prolonging the problem.
No they will do what they do now:
Expand into other illegal and legal venues and worst case attempt a coup.
Stuff that is less likely to spill over the border into the US.
No, they did risk reduction plays decades ago into legit industries. It might hit them for 20-30%. Also they control a lot of rare earth minerals...
The US absolutely has an interest in the destruction of Mexican cartels.
I don't mind bombing the cartels from a distance. I'd rather the U.S. continues to pursue diplomatic options vs. war.