Leader hopes to ease Mexico-Spain tensions

Sheinbaum will also meet at a Barcelona confab with other leftist heads of state.

- By Patrick J. McDonnell

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum visits Spain this weekend on a twofold mission: to show solidarity with fellow “progressive” global leaders, and to ease simmering tensions with Mexico's onetime colonial overseer.

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

“No, it’s not an anti-Trump meeting,” Sheinbaum told reporters here Thursday. “Not in the least.”

Still, a gathering of leftist heads of state favoring “peaceful solutions to conflicts,” in Sheinbaum’s words, sounds more like Pope Leo XIV denouncing a “zeal for war” than a pronouncement from the White House.

Slated to join Sheinbaum on Saturday at the Global Progressive Mobilization in Barcelona will be a constellation of left-wing leaders, including Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro — both of whom have had run-ins with President Trump.

Hosting the confab will be Spain's prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, who became an overnight antiwar champion to many when Madrid rebuffed a U.S. request to use Spanish bases in the war against Iran.

“We respect President Trump,” Sheinbaum said before departing for Spain, displaying the —“cool-headed,” pragmatic tone emblematic of her dealings with her bombastic U.S. counterpart. “He takes decisions that we don’t think are correct, but that’s another matter.”