{"id":45853,"date":"2026-06-25T13:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T13:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/45853\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T13:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T13:38:09","slug":"sheinbaum-puts-her-own-stamp-on-mexicos-diplomatic-peace-with-spain-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/45853\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheinbaum puts her own stamp on Mexico\u2019s diplomatic peace with Spain | International"},"content":{"rendered":"

The meeting scheduled at Mexico City\u2019s National Palace on Thursday will not only seal the diplomatic reconciliation between Spain and Mexico after seven years of tension. The long-awaited photo of concord between President Claudia Sheinbaum and King Felipe VI also marks the continuation of the path that the Mexican president is forging for herself. Sheinbaum inherited the bilateral dispute from her predecessor Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador, and without changing the substance of the matter\u2014the request to the Spanish Crown to acknowledge the violence perpetrated during the colonial era<\/a>\u2014she began building bridges as soon as she took office. That rapprochement, beyond the obvious cultural and economic ties and interests between both nations, has also become a strategic political alliance following the relentless pressure on Mexico from Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Without fanfare, and relying above all on cultural diplomacy, Sheinbaum has been repairing the broken communication channels with gestures from both sides following the controversial letter that L\u00f3pez Obrador sent the Spanish royals in 2019, and whose request for a public apology was ignored. Reconciliation with Spain has not been the only pivot of the Mexican president. In just over a year and a half in office, Sheinbaum has taken steps to consolidate her own project, asserting her style across nearly all centers of power. Most evident among these are a more active security strategy<\/a> and a relaunch of foreign policy, two of the areas where L\u00f3pez Obrador was the weakest. The latter\u2019s habitual reluctance to look beyond Mexico\u2019s borders was summed up in one of his favorite slogans: \u201cThe best foreign policy is domestic policy.\u201d Another of his phrases embodied his softer stance on confronting crime head-on: \u201cAbrazos, no balazos (Hugs, not bullets).\u201d<\/p>\n

It has not been an easy path. The former president, who is the founder of the political party Morena and linchpin of the Mexican left, still commands formidable political capital. He left the presidency with his popularity hovering near 70%. Aware of his influence, he announced he would withdraw from the public spotlight so as not to condition the new president, whom he had been grooming as his heir during the turbulent internal succession in the party. \u201cThe figure of L\u00f3pez Obrador is unusual because of his great popularity and because, for now, he is observing the principle of non-interference, which has no precedent in recent Mexican history,\u201d says international relations expert Gabriel Guerra Castellanos, who also notes that \u201cthe president has been carving out her territory day by day, with symbolic gestures and substantive policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The channel was advancing but, as in so many other cases, the Trump whirlwind ended up shaping it. Since his return to the White House, the Republican leader has deployed the most aggressive version of his policy. Beyond economic threats (over non-renewal of the USMCA free trade agreement or the imposition of tariffs), the U.S. president repeats every month his desire to intervene militarily in Mexico to fight organized crime. The tension has even led the U.S. Department of Justice to accuse Morena governor Rub\u00e9n Rocha of working for the Sinaloa Cartel. \u201cThis level of pressure hadn\u2019t been seen in a century,\u201d says Abelardo Rodr\u00edguez, professor of international studies at the Ibero-American University, \u201cand, of course, President L\u00f3pez Obrador hadn\u2019t experienced it either, given that he even had a good relationship with Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

That shift in the external environment has reconfigured Sheinbaum\u2019s playing board. \u201cMexico\u2019s foreign-policy axis in the world runs through the United States,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez adds, arguing that the challenge with its northern neighbor has forced the president into \u201cstrategic repositionings.\u201d This includes the change of ambassador in Washington, the signing of Mexico\u2019s treaty with the European Union, the latest rapprochement with the United Kingdom and, of course, building bridges with Spain<\/a>. This thaw is also ideologically useful for both countries after recent setbacks for the left in Peru and Colombia, emphasizes Mexican historian Alfredo \u00c1vila: \u201cBoth Pedro S\u00e1nchez\u2019s government and Claudia Sheinbaum\u2019s know they are increasingly isolated. That they could shake hands, first, and that the president will now meet the king, are steps toward trying to form a progressive alliance at a moment when the far right is sweeping elections everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is in this same context that Sheinbaum\u2019s presence at the progressive summit S\u00e1nchez organized in April in Barcelona should be viewed. It was the first trip by a Mexican president to Spain since 2018 and, moreover, the first trip by a Morena president to Europe. The alliance appears likely to continue consolidating. In November, Madrid will host another summit that Spain hopes will reaffirm the role of the Ibero-American community in the face of White House pressure.<\/p>\n

Thus, although specialists believe the upcoming photo of Felipe VI at the National Palace could not have taken place under L\u00f3pez Obrador, it is not so much because the presidents have major differences in how they understand history, but because of the external whirlwind. \u201cL\u00f3pez Obrador\u2019s and Sheinbaum\u2019s views of history are very similar. It is the traditional view taught in Mexico at the end of the last century: a heroic bronze-age history, as we call it in reference to bronze monuments, with great heroes and villains. Of course, the heroes are the nationalist Mexican patriots and the villains are those who submit to foreign interests, the elites and the oligarchies,\u201d \u00c1vila adds.<\/p>\n

Colmex historian Lorenzo Meyer agrees that the emphasis on pre-Hispanic peoples connects with one of the theoretical pillars of Obradorismo, the so-called Mexican humanism. \u201cWhile many on the left look to the future, he turns to the past and finds characteristics in pre-Hispanic cultures worthy of praise.\u201d Thus, in the Morena imagination, the struggle against the colonizer and against large landowners would be \u201ca struggle in favor of a different Mexico, and therein lies the legacy of the Spaniards.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is why Sheinbaum continues to insist she wants Spain to learn another version of the Conquest. The only thing the president has revealed about her meeting with the king is that it will be \u201cvery brief\u201d and that she will speak to him about Mexico\u2019s indigenous peoples. \u201cThat idea of convincing Spain of the true history of the Conquest sounds more like a pretext to justify the fact that it is distancing itself from the previous administration\u2019s position while the relationship is actually thawing,\u201d assesses international relations expert P\u00eda Taracena, who adds that three elements had to align for Thursday\u2019s meeting: \u201cthe change of the person leading Mexico, the way the king acknowledged the abuses<\/a> that occurred during the Conquest and the president\u2019s willingness to open the channel more.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Sheinbaum won the election two years ago, she did not invite the Spanish king to her inauguration, and no delegation from the Spanish government attended either. But something changed. Contacts to explore a potential major exhibition on Indigenous art in Spain began in her first days in office. At that Madrid exhibition, in March, Felipe VI made the gesture of acknowledging the \u201cabuses\u201d of the Conquest. Previously the Spanish monarch had referred in that same setting to \u201cinjustice and pain\u201d during colonization. Sheinbaum responded to those \u201cgestures\u201d by inviting the king to the World Cup. A seemingly routine protocol step, it gained relevance with the later formal invitation to Thursday\u2019s heads-of-state meeting at the official residence and seat of Mexican power.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The meeting scheduled at Mexico City\u2019s National Palace on Thursday will not only seal the diplomatic reconciliation between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3473,1970,3474,247,17],"class_list":["post-45853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-andres-manuel-lopez-obrador","tag-claudia-sheinbaum","tag-felipe-vi","tag-mexico","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}