My point was that we are allowing hundreds of billions a year to flow to drug cartels and to China. These are not our buddies. Legalize drugs and you cut out the huge profits and most illegal activity surrounding that commerce. Severely reduce business with China and transfer manufacturing to Mexico, Central and South America and you provide jobs and build up a middle class there. Also, get an increased tax base so the Gov'ts have more money to improve infrastructure and provide better policing, more security.
One thing unusual about US style capitalism is we more or less leave strategic policy up to companies trying to make profits, rather than guiding US corporate investment to serve geo-political goals.
I think it's great that 3 or 400M Chinese have been lifted out of poverty. But the flipside is that we have emboldened an adversary and helped them beef up a military that threatens US interests.
I've said before that we could have tailored this so that our goods were manufactured in India, Mexico, Brazil, South America strengthening allies instead.
In many ways the War on Drugs has been a huge failure. And so has trade with China. Hundreds of billions per year have been transferred to players who are not our allies. My point is the US should stop buying drug via murderous middlemen and stop buying manufactured goods from China. It's a different world if Mexico and Brasil or India are the Factory of the World, and the drugs aren't illegal and drug gangs aren't raking in huge profits. These aren't hard changes to make.