Mexico - May 2026

On 8 April Mexico’s senate ratified the appointment of Roberto Velasco Álvarez as the country’s new foreign minister. The move by President Claudia Sheinbaum to nominate the 38-year-old Velasco came after Juan Ramón de la Fuente, foreign minister since 2024, offered to step down from his role due to health reasons. Replacing the 74-year-old De la Fuente with Velasco, seen as a leading expert on bilateral relations with the US, signals at once a generational changing of the guard within the government’s ranks and a tactical reinforcement of Sheinbaum’s strategic priority of managing relations with the US administration of President Donald Trump.

Velasco’s nomination passed through the upper chamber, where the ruling Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (Morena) party and its allies command a supermajority, by 81 votes in favour to 30 against and zero abstentions. The vote confirmed him as one of the youngest foreign ministers in Mexico’s history. Holding a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Chicago, Velasco’s career in the foreign ministry (SRE) began during the administration of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), when he served under then-foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard (2018-2023). Velasco led the SRE’s communications arm between 2018 and 2020, later spearheading the ministry’s North America unit, where he carved out his niche as an expert in US relations, accompanying Ebrard on numerous visits to the US during Trump’s first presidential term (2017-2021).

Velasco’s proximity to Ebrard, who was Sheinbaum’s main political rival within Morena to succeed López Obrador as president in 2024, did little to stem his rise under the administration of Mexico’s first female president. With Ebrard in place as Sheinbaum’s economy minister, Velasco has emerged as a key interlocutor with Trump administration officials during a period of unprecedented volatility in US-Mexico relations. In October 2025, Velasco was promoted to deputy minister for North America, in charge of the government’s strategic engagement efforts with Washington. He has led multiple high-level negotiations on security, migration, and border issues, and stood in for De la Fuente as acting foreign minister between December 2025 and January 2026.

On 9 April, the newly confirmed foreign minister addressed SRE colleagues to lay out his vision for Mexico’s place in the world. His speech echoed President Sheinbaum’s strategy of defending Mexico’s sovereignty while also engaging constructively with the US. Evidently in lockstep with the government’s domestic and foreign policy ambitions, Velasco also took the opportunity to tacitly acknowledge what Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, in his speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos earlier in the year, referred to as the moment of “rupture” facing so-called middle-powers brought on by the Trump administration’s approach to geopolitics. “I assume this responsibility at a moment when the international order, sustained by rules and clear and reasonable principles accepted by all, is undergoing a very profound reconfiguration”, Velasco remarked. In this reconfiguration, he said, Mexico “will be present: building, influencing and inspiring a more efficient and equal system, more inclined to peace and multilateralism”.

Indeed, the young diplomat will face a host of challenges in the months ahead. The first order of business will be to manage the negotiations of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Talks between the US and Mexico began in March – with the first official bilateral negotiating round due on 25 May – and are expected to culminate ahead of the 1 July target date for renewal, with the threat of a US withdrawal looming over Mexico’s economy. Velasco, experienced in direct talks with US counterparts, will be supporting his former mentor Ebrard, who is leading the negotiations as economy minister. The aim for both will be to secure a renewal close to the terms of the original agreement to provide continuity for the Sheinbaum government, given the country’s highly export-dependent and regionally integrated economy.

Velasco will also be tasked with communicating to US officials his government’s achievements in tackling organised crime and migration. This is of particular importance given President Trump’s frequent threats to increase trade barriers, and even engage in unilateral military action on Mexican soil, if his security demands are not met. While the Mexican government has stepped up its efforts to counter cartel activity in recent months, Velasco will have to balance security and border cooperation with remaining firm on defending Mexican sovereignty and protecting the rights of Mexican nationals in the US. Tensions around the treatment of Mexican migrants in US detention centres and the presence of US officials – reportedly from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – in an area where anti-cartel activities were being conducted in the weeks following Velasco’s appointment have highlighted the sensitive nature of relations around security and migration.

• ICE

An early test for Velasco came on 13 April, when another Mexican citizen was reported to have died in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, bringing the total to 15 fatalities since Trump took office in January 2025, and the fifth this year. The foreign ministry labelled the “repeated deaths” of its nationals as “unacceptable” and reflective of “serious deficiencies in ICE’s migrant detention centres” which it described as “incompatible with human rights standards”. Velasco will need to ensure his consular network plays an active role in protecting Mexican nationals in the US, while ensuring relations with Washington remain cordial.

Another foreign policy fault line that Velasco will do well to manage centres on the growing diplomatic and humanitarian crisis in Cuba. With the US continuing to impose an oil blockade against the island and President Trump suggesting Cuba would be the next target for US military operations following the war in Iran, Mexico finds itself caught between the desire to maintain stable relations with the US and its longstanding fraternal commitment to Cuba [SSR-26-03]. On 18 April President Sheinbaum, accompanied by Velasco at a summit of progressive leaders in Barcelona, signed a joint statement with the leaders of Brazil and Spain, expressing their “grave concern” over the humanitarian situation on the island and calling for Cuba’s sovereignty to be respected.

Following the summit in Barcelona, Velasco went to Brussels for high-level meetings with European Union (EU) leaders – including António Costa, the president of the European Council, and Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat – ahead of the upcoming signing of the modernised global agreement (MGA) between Mexico and the EU. This trip was emblematic of Mexico’s increasingly proactive approach to multilateralism, which has grown under Sheinbaum. In contrast to the more domestic-focused López Obrador – who never ventured beyond the Americas and the Caribbean during his six-year term – Sheinbaum has sought to leverage Mexico’s position on the world stage through her presence at numerous multilateral summits [SSR-25-08]. Again, this is where Velasco may align more with the government’s priorities compared to the more low-key profile of De la Fuente, with Velasco’s background as SRE spokesperson suggesting he has the communications experience to thrive under the government’s more forward-facing approach to global diplomacy.

Nevertheless, Mexico’s embrace of multilateralism is likely to remain constrained in the near term by the overriding imperative of managing relations with its northern neighbour. One of Velasco’s first acts in office was a 9 April call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which the SRE described as “productive and cordial”. While the pair discussed cooperation on security and migration, the key issue of Cuba was absent from official statements. This is likely to feature prominently in forthcoming discussions between the two counterparts, particularly given Rubio’s hawkish stance on the island. While Mexico will no doubt continue expanding its role of multilateral mediator on the world stage under Velasco’s guidance, tensions around bilateral security cooperation, Cuba, and the USMCA lay bare the delicate diplomatic tightrope that Mexico’s new foreign minister will have to walk in the months ahead.

USMCA

Business confidence, as tracked by Mexico’s national statistics institute (Inegi), has slumped over the past year, with the March 2026 index for overall sentiment down 0.9 percentage points from March 2025. The drop in confidence was sharpest in the manufacturing sector, where it fell by 2.2 percentage points, with the number of manufacturing businesses reporting now is a good moment to invest down 4 percentage points across that same period, as uncertainty over USMCA talks hinders long-term decision making.