Mexico’s Sheinbaum travels to Barcelona for ‘progressive’ confab, tension-easing talks with Spain

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is traveling to Spain this weekend on a dual mission: to show solidarity with her fellow “progressive” world leaders and to ease simmering tensions with Mexico’s former colonial overseer.

But before embarking on her first trip to Europe as president of Mexico, Sheinbaum sought to clarify what she calls a misunderstanding.

“No, this is not an anti-Trump meeting,” Sheinbaum told reporters here on Thursday. “No way.”

Yet a gathering of left-wing heads of state favoring “peaceful solutions to conflicts,” in Sheinbaum’s words, sounds more like Pope Leo XIV’s denunciation of a “zeal for war” than a White House statement.

A constellation of left-wing leaders, including Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, are expected to join Sheinbaum on Saturday at the Global Progressive Mobilization in Barcelona, ​​both of whom have had run-ins with President Trump.

Hosting the conference will be Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who overnight became an anti-war champion in the eyes of many when Madrid rejected a U.S. request to use Spanish bases in the war against Iran.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez speaks during a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference, in Munich, Germany, February 14.

(Michael Probst/Associated Press)

“We respect President Trump,” Sheinbaum said before leaving for Spain, displaying the “calm and pragmatic” tone emblematic of his relations with his bombastic American counterpart. “He makes decisions that we don’t think are right, but that’s another matter.”

Still, some observers in Mexico see a potentially dangerous path for Sheinbaum on his excursion to Spain.

The summit, they note, has the potential to become a Trump-bashing extravaganza. That could anger the White House as negotiators from the United States, Mexico and Canada open negotiations on a new free trade agreement – a pillar of Mexico’s export-dependent economy.

The event comes at a “critical moment,” wrote columnist Alejo Sánchez Cano in the Mexican newspaper El Financiero. “Any sign of ideological alignment that can be interpreted as distancing itself from the [U.S.] the agenda introduces a risk factor.

Less risky, it seems, is Sheinbaum’s conciliatory approach to Spain, a country that has long had close cultural and economic ties with Mexico – home to the world’s largest Spanish-speaking population.

But since 2019, the two countries have been plunged into a diplomatic freeze so deep that Madrid has not sent any official representatives to the 2024 inauguration marking Sheinbaum’s accession as Mexico’s first female president. Spanish officials say they are offended that King Felipe VI was not invited.

Behind this dispute lie competing narratives about historical memory between Mexico and Spain, which ruled Mexico for three centuries, beginning with the Spanish conquest in 1521.

As the 500th anniversary of the conquest approached in 2021, then-Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote what became an infamous letter: he demanded that the Spanish monarchy apologize for the atrocities committed against indigenous peoples during Mexico’s subjugation.

Madrid rejected the request, calling it an affront. Contemporary standards, Spanish officials argued, cannot be used to judge a nation’s past.

This is how the current bilateral divide opened, even though Mexico and Madrid have never severed their formal diplomatic relations. López Obrador called it a “pause” in relationships.

The discord began at a time when bitterness over Spain’s colonial legacy had largely dissipated and many Mexicans celebrate their mixed European and indigenous heritage. Spanish restaurants, cafes and cultural centers abound throughout Mexico, a major tourist destination for Spaniards – just as many Mexicans visit Spain.

The tumult of 20th-century Europe saw a new influx of Spanish emigrants. Former Mexican President Lázaro Cardenas, who welcomed Spaniards fleeing the fratricidal civil war (1936-39), is still revered among those who trace their origins to Spain.

“My father and grandfather always talked about their love for Mexico, their pride in living in this country,” said Roberto López Díaz, 62, a Mexican businessman of Spanish origin. “Fortunately, neither were present to witness the government’s decision to freeze friendly relations with Spain.”

Sheinbaum has moved cautiously forward in his incremental efforts to rebuild bilateral relations. She often repeated her mentor’s claims about atrocities committed during Mexico’s colonial era.

“There were massacres against indigenous communities, they were forced to have one religion,” Sheinbaum said last week. The idea that the Spanish arrived “to civilize is not an idea we should share.”

According to her, her decision to go to Spain can be explained by recent conciliatory gestures from Spanish leaders. Some have attempted to clarify past suggestions – still prevalent on the Spanish right – that Spain brought “civilization” to a “backward” Mexico.

José Manuel Albares, the Spanish foreign minister, acknowledged that Spanish colonial actions had caused “justice and suffering” to Mexican indigenous communities.

Last month, King Felipe, while visiting a museum exhibit featuring indigenous Mexican women, acknowledged that the actions of the Spanish conquistadors had included “many abuses” and raised “ethical controversies.”

Sheinbaum nevertheless stressed that his trip to Spain was not an official state visit. There are also no plans for her to meet Felipe.

The bitter controversy over historical memory appears to have had little or no impact on business, tourism and other ties between Spain and Mexico. And today, the governments in Mexico City and Madrid share something else: progressive, left-wing leadership at odds with the White House agenda on foreign conflict and hostility toward immigration.

In both Spain and Mexico, commentators have mostly welcomed the prospect of an end to the mini-Cold War between two nations with such deep ties.

Ultraconservative movements on both sides of the Atlantic have exploited the conflict between Mexico and Spain “to incite their hate speech,” the Spanish daily El País recently wrote in an editorial. “The two countries are today guided by similar political models. (…) It is urgent to rebuild ties in our time.”

In the wall of a colonial church in downtown Mexico City are the remains of Spain’s most infamous conquistador: Hernán Cortés, whose forces by all accounts waged a ruthless campaign – some call it genocidal – to overthrow the Aztec Empire.

Cortés remains a reviled figure for many in Mexico. But visitors are always respectful, said Father Efraín Trejo Martínez, pastor of the Church of Jesús Nazareno.

“It always seemed strange to me when people criticize the past with the eyes of the present,” Trejo said. “The past is the past and it had its own reality. »

Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.