When fought with guns and violence, the war against the Mexican drug cartels has spurred only more guns and violence.
Mexico is our second largest trading partner after Canada. They are our second largest supplier of petroleum, and our two economics--which every year service more than 461 million people and produce $17 trillion worth of value (goods and services)--are intricately linked under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), to our collective benefit.
President Obama should create a panel of leading scholars--from international relations to game theory and economics--to help formulate a joint United States-Mexican economic policy to end the cartels for good. By using our superior educational resources, we can fight the cartels with economic rather than physical warfare.