First Mexico’s female president takes stock after a year in office

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum celebrated her government’s handling of its tumultuous relations with the Trump administration, progressive gains and controversial judicial reforms in her first state of the nation address yesterday [Macau time].

Sheinbaum, who is nearing the end of her first year in office, notably left out some of the major problems still simmering in Mexico, including ongoing cartel violence plaguing much of the country and democratic concerns over wider concentration of executive power.

Mexico’s first female president took office in October and has led the Latin American nation of 131 million at a time of radical global shifts. Despite that, the 63-year-old progressive leader has enjoyed soaring approval rates between 70% and 80% in Mexican polls.

“Things are going well, and they’re only going to get better,” she promised.

Here are some of the top takeaways from Sheinbaum’s State of the Nation address.

Navigating the Trump era

Chief among Sheinbaum’s challenges has been navigating Mexico’s inextricable political and economic relationship with the United States as President Donald Trump has doled out tariffs globally and pressured allies into making concessions.

Sheinbaum has been able to dodge the brunt of Trump’s tariffs by going after Mexican cartels and their fentanyl production more aggressively than her predecessor. In recent months, the government has delivered dozens of cartel figures long wanted by U.S. authorities to the Trump administration.

At the same time, her administration has insisted that the Trump administration respect Mexican sovereignty, and has rejected talk of potential American military action against cartels in Mexican territory.

“Under no circumstance will we accept interventions, interference, or any other act from abroad that is detrimental to the integrity, independence, and sovereignty of the country,” she said.

A day before Secretary of State Marco Rubio was set to visit to discuss security issues, Sheinbaum said the governments share a relationship of “mutual trust, respect for sovereignty and territoriality, and cooperation without subordination.”

Just weeks earlier, however, Trump told press: “Mexico does what we tell them to do.”

Drop in poverty and social programs

The president also highlighted major progressive gains made by her government and by her predecessor and ally, ex-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Government data released last month showed that more than 8.3 million people in Mexico were pulled out of poverty between 2022 and 2024, something experts said was due in large part to social programs and the government raising the minimum wage.

Direct money transfers ranging from scholarships to payments to Mexico’s elderly have also gone to around 32 million families, about a quarter of the country’s population, Sheinbaum said.

“This is the most ambitious social plan in Mexico’s history,” she said.

Carrying the legacy of “AMLO”

Sheinbaum spent much of the speech explaining how she was carrying the legacy of her predecessor, a promise that got Sheinbaum elected last year, and underscoring the country’s strong economy.

The president listed a slew of construction projects in the works, including the continuation of López Obrador’s crown jewel project, the Maya Train.

Despite wider global economic uncertainty, she highlighted a strong economy in Mexico, including growing investment and a strong peso.

She also nodded to a newly elected Supreme Court set to take office later Monday after Sheinbaum and López Obrador’s Morena party overhauled the judicial system last year. She called it a “profoundly democratic event.” The judicial reform, which has judges elected, fueled concerns of democratic decay.

Avoiding cartels and democratic concerns

The problems Mexico continues to wrestle with were notably absent from Sheinbaum’s speech.

While she mentioned dipping homicide rates, she largely didn’t comment on what most Mexicans see as their country’s main problem: cartel violence.

Despite promises from López Obrador that his social programs would dip conflict in the Latin American nation, violence in much of Mexico has only continued to rage on. Cartel warfare has fueled bloodshed in Sinaloa, as dead bodies pop up on the streets every morning and nearly 130,000 Mexicans remain missing.

Sheinbaum also made little mention of wider democratic concerns attached to Mexico’s judicial reform, which was jammed through by Morena last year, and set the stage for judicial elections in June. Critics warned that by popularly electing judges, the party was dealing a blow to checks and balances, by making it easier to get allies on top courts.

The majority of those slated to take control of Mexico’s Supreme Court on Monday are members or former members of the Morena party.

“The era of nepotism, corruption and privilege is over, and a new era of legality and justice for all is beginning,” Sheinbaum said.

Later Monday, Mexico introduced the new court. Hugo Aguilar, a lawyer who spent much of his career defending Indigenous rights, said during a ceremony that as the court’s president he will work “to give justice to those who have been excluded from the judicial apparatus.” MEGAN JANETSKY, MEXICO CITY, MDT/AP