The United Mexican States, or Mexico for short, is a country located at the southernmost end of North America. It is led by President Luis H. Álvarez, who won Mexico's first legitimate multi-party elections in 1958 for the liberal Partido Acción Nacional. Mexico has one of the world's most convoluted histories; its territory hosted an array of mesoamerican empires, whose civilisations were of obsidian and stone. In 1521 the city of Tenochtitlan was conquered by the Spanish soldier Hernán Cortés, beginning 300 years of colonial rule. Since achieving independence in 1821, Mexico had been involved in endless civil conflicts, mired in instability, and sunken in poverty. In the early 20th century, the Mexican Revolution brought one last harvest of blood, which resulted in victory for what would become the PRI, a big tent left-wing nationalist party. The PRI created what was essentially a one-party state, managed early on by revolutionary leaders, later by professional bureaucrats. When it became clear that the imperialist German Empire had become Europe's master, the United States formed an alliance with Canada's new Anglo-American monarchy; the Allied Nations of North America, or the Allies for short. Mexico received an invitation, but did not join, and was later regarded with extreme suspicion due to its left-wing policies and Leon Trotsky's friendship with some key Mexican artists (namely Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, whose works he was a fan of).
As Soviet-American relations worsened, it became increasingly obvious that whoever was victorious in a second Great War would seek to dominate the American continent. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was alarmed at the amount of nations which had fallen to communism; only a few years prior to World War II, Germany was completely surrounded by Comintern or Comintern-allied nations. President Manuel Ávila Camacho aptly realised that Mexico's greatest issue for years to come would be that of poverty, and while he was more moderate than his predecessor, if America went to war with the Soviet Union it would certainly block trade, or perhaps even invade his country. Sworn in on December 1st, he was almost immediately visited by FDR on numerous occasions; America was undergoing a mobilisation and rearmament program the likes of which the world had never seen before, requiring Mexican labour and manpower. In exchange, American companies would build a number of factories, refineries and installations in joint ownership with the Mexican government, which would continue operating after peace was established. The largely left-wing PRI cadres were shocked when President Ávila Camacho announced on February 3rd of 1940 that Mexico would join the Allied Forces. Mexican servicemen fought on all fronts as part of the Allies, while the country became one of the United Nations' founding members, later joining NATO as well.
More or less as expected, Mexico's rapid industrialisation during WW2 and a large number of remmitances helped the country experience its own post-war boom; the Mexican Miracle. Ávila Camacho's successor, Miguel Alemán Valdéz, inherited a very strong and sharply rising economy, though his presidency was marred by a number of corruption scandals which the DFS (Mexico's internal security service) attempted to violently silence. A period of turmoil and protests saw the opposition PAN win a number of seats in Congress in 1952, while ex-military leader Miguel Henríquez Guzmán was able to wrest the presidential nomination from Adolfo Ruiz Cortines. His presidency saw a number of controversies surrounding the Mexican Army and the DFS; opposition figures proclaimed that Guzmán sought to transform Mexico into a military dictatorship. The PRI was defeated in 1958 by the PAN, marking the country's first truly democratic transition of power. However, the former still has many supporters amongst the armed forces and the bureaucracy, and political tensions may soon reach a boiling point.
See: Mexican Government 🚩