For reasons of geography Mexico's fate is ineluctably intertwined with that of the United States.

ECONOMIST: Mexico��s economy

But by the mid-1800s North America was in common use for mere geography, and by roughly 1900 the sheer weight of the much enlarged United States had enabled it to annex America as its own.

ECONOMIST: Johnson

To put all in a nutshell, there is the detail that if only because of geography Mexico is the number-one route for drugs entering the United States.

ECONOMIST: Uncle Sam’s war on drugs | The