{"id":274118,"date":"2026-04-18T11:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T11:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/274118\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T11:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T11:56:10","slug":"mexicos-sheinbaum-travels-to-barcelona-for-progressive-confab-tension-easing-talks-with-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/274118\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico’s Sheinbaum travels to Barcelona for ‘progressive’ confab, tension-easing talks with Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MEXICO CITY\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum visits Spain this weekend on a twofold mission: to show solidarity with fellow \u201cprogressive\u201d global leaders, and to ease simmering tensions with Mexico\u2019s onetime colonial overseer.<\/p>\n

But, before embarking on her first trip to Europe as president of Mexico, Sheinbaum sought to clarify what she called a misunderstanding.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it\u2019s not an anti-Trump meeting,\u201d Sheinbaum told reporters here Thursday. \u201cNot in the least.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, a gathering of leftist heads of state favoring \u201cpeaceful solutions to conflicts,\u201d in Sheinbaum\u2019s words, sounds more like Pope Leo XIV denouncing a \u201czeal for war\u201d than a pronouncement from the White House.<\/p>\n

Slated to join Sheinbaum on Saturday at the Global Progressive Mobilization in Barcelona will be a constellation of left-wing leaders, including Brazil\u2019s Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva <\/a>and Colombia\u2019s Gustavo Petro<\/a> \u2014 both of whom have had run-ins with President Trump.<\/p>\n

Hosting the confab will be Spain\u2019s prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez<\/a>, who became an overnight antiwar champion to many when Madrid rebuffed a U.S. request to use Spanish bases in the war against Iran. <\/p>\n

\"Spain's <\/p>\n

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez speaks during a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on Feb. 14. <\/p>\n

(Michael Probst \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe respect President Trump,\u201d Sheinbaum said before departing for Spain, displaying the \u201ccool-headed,\u201d pragmatic tone emblematic of her dealings with her bombastic U.S. counterpart. \u201cHe takes decisions that we don\u2019t think are correct, but that\u2019s another matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, some observers in Mexico see a potentially treacherous path for Sheinbaum on her Spanish excursion.<\/p>\n

The summit, they note, has the potential to become a Trump-bashing extravaganza. That could anger the White House as negotiators for the United States, Mexico and Canada open talks on a renewed free-trade accord \u2014 a linchpin of Mexico\u2019s export-dependent economy. <\/p>\n

The event comes at a \u201ccritical moment,\u201d columnist Alejo S\u00e1nchez Cano wrote in Mexico\u2019s El Financiero newspaper. \u201cAny sign of ideological alignment that can be interpreted as a distancing from the [U.S.] agenda introduces a factor of risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Less risky, it seems, is Sheinbaum\u2019s conciliatory outreach to Spain, a country that has long enjoyed close cultural and economic ties to Mexico \u2014 home to the world\u2019s largest Spanish-speaking population. <\/p>\n

But since 2019, the two nations have plunged into a diplomatic deep-freeze so profound that Madrid sent no official representative to the 2024 inauguration marking Sheinbaum\u2019s ascension as Mexico\u2019s first woman president. Spanish officials say they were offended that King Felipe VI was not invited.<\/p>\n

Behind the dispute are competing narratives about historical memory between Mexico and Spain, which ruled Mexico for three centuries, starting with the Spanish conquest in 1521.<\/p>\n

During the run-up to the 500th anniversary of the conquest in 2021, then-Mexican President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador wrote what became an infamous letter: He demanded that the Spanish monarchy apologize for atrocities committed against Indigenous peoples during the subjugation of Mexico.<\/p>\n

Madrid rejected the demand, calling it an affront. Contemporary standards, Spanish officials argued, cannot be used to judge a nation\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

Thus cracked open the ongoing bilateral fracture, though Mexico City and Madrid never broke off formal diplomatic ties. L\u00f3pez Obrador called it a \u201cpause\u201d in relations. <\/p>\n

The discord began at a time when bitterness about Spain\u2019s colonial legacy had largely receded, 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 \u2014 just as many Mexicans visit Spain. <\/p>\n

The tumult of 20th century Europe saw a new influx of Spaniard emigrants. Former Mexican President L\u00e1zaro Cardenas, who welcomed Spaniards escaping their nation\u2019s fratricidal (1936-39) civil war, is still revered among many who trace their origins to Spain. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy father and grandfather always spoke of their love for Mexico, of how proud they were to live in this country,\u201d said Roberto L\u00f3pez D\u00edaz, 62, a Mexican businessman of Spanish heritage. \u201cFortunately, neither were here to see the decision of the government to freeze its relationship of friendship with Spain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheinbaum has trod carefully in her gradual effort to rebuild bilateral relations. She has often repeated her mentor\u2019s assertion of colonial-era atrocities in Mexico.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were massacres against Indigenous communities, they were forced to have one religion,\u201d Sheinbaum said last week. The idea that the Spanish arrived \u201cto civilize is not one we should share.\u201d<\/p>\n

Informing her decision to visit Spain, she said, were recent conciliatory gestures from Spanish leaders. Some have endeavored to clarify past suggestions \u2014 still prevalent on the Spanish right \u2014 that Spain brought \u201ccivilization\u201d to a \u201cbackward\u201d Mexico.<\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 Manuel Albares, the Spanish foreign minister, recognized that Spanish colonial actions had caused \u201cinjustice and pain\u201d for Indigenous Mexican communities.<\/p>\n

Last month, King Felipe, while visiting a museum exhibition showcasing Mexican Indigenous women, conceded that the actions of Spanish conquistadors had featured \u201cmuch abuse\u201d and raised \u201cethical controversies.\u201d<\/a> <\/p>\n

Still, Sheinbaum has stressed that her trip to Spain is not an official state visit. Nor is she scheduled to meet Felipe. <\/p>\n

The bitter flap about historical memory appears to have had little if any impact on business, tourism and other links 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 of foreign conflicts and hostility toward immigration. <\/p>\n

In both Spain and Mexico, commentators have mostly welcomed the prospect of an end to the mini-Cold War between two nations that have such deep ties.<\/p>\n

Ultraconservative movements on both sides of the Atlantic have exploited the Mexican-Spanish dispute \u201cto incite their discourses of hate,\u201d the Spanish daily El Pa\u00eds wrote in a recent editorial. \u201cThe two countries are today guided by related political models. … To reconstruct the ties is urgent in these times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Embedded in the wall of a weathered, colonial-era church in downtown Mexico City are the remains of Spain\u2019s most infamous conquistador: Hern\u00e1n Cort\u00e9s, whose forces, by all accounts, waged a ruthless \u2014 some label it genocidal \u2014 campaign to overthrow the Aztec empire. <\/p>\n

Cort\u00e9s remains a reviled figure to many in Mexico. But visitors are always respectful, said Father Efra\u00edn Trejo Mart\u00ednez, the pastor of the Church of Jes\u00fas Nazareno. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt always struck me as strange when people criticize the past with the eyes of the present,\u201d Trejo said. \u201cThe past is the past, and it had its own reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Special correspondent Cecilia S\u00e1nchez Vidal contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEXICO CITY\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum visits Spain this weekend on a twofold mission: to show solidarity with fellow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[62888,118785,7363,6848,73870,48,52,51,47,50,49,118784,2457,2458,1524,25751,6283,30546,35345,2664,2805],"class_list":{"0":"post-274118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-barcelona","9":"tag-confab","10":"tag-country","11":"tag-decision","12":"tag-hernan-cortes","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-headlines","15":"tag-la-news","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","18":"tag-los-angeles-news","19":"tag-madrid","20":"tag-mexico","21":"tag-mexico-city","22":"tag-nation","23":"tag-past","24":"tag-president","25":"tag-sheinbaum","26":"tag-spain","27":"tag-war","28":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}