Sheinbaum’s polished G7 visit was dimmed by small-beer politics

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum handing a gift to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the G7 this week. Image credit: Associated Press / Alamy.

by David Agren.

President Claudia Sheinbaum stepped onto the world stage with her participation in this week’s Group of Seven Leaders’ Summit in the Canadian Rockies. 

Sheinbaum sat down with the leaders of India, South Korea, Germany, the European Union, though suffered the misfortune of US President Donald Trump hightailing it back to Washington, ostensibly to deal with the Israel-Iran war, prior to their first face-to-face meeting. (She didn’t post any photos with Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenskyy, a leader unpopular with her base.)

Sheinbaum also sat down with the host, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. She presented him with a beaded soccer ball made by Huichol artists ahead of the 2026 World Cup hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada.

The meeting with Carney appeared to reset Canada-Mexico relations after missteps under Sheinbaum’s predecessor, former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador – whom Canadian companies accused of undermining their clean energy investments – and former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who removed then restored visa requirements on Mexicans during his nine-year premiership.

Sheinbaum’s meeting with the Business Council of Canada upon arriving in Calgary reflected the push from Canadian business leaders to strengthen commercial ties and successfully renew the USMCA trade agreement.

The surest sign of renewed relations, however, came from the influencers of AMLO and Sheinbaum’s so-called “fourth transformation” (4T) – the online gadflies relentlessly promoting pro-government talking points. The influencers previously couldn’t mention Canada or Trudeau without snarky comments on Canadian mining companies, which AMLO accused of failing to pay taxes and pillaging the environment. But none of that acrimony surfaced in the influencers social media activity. 

“We agreed, of course, to continue working together on the trade agreement; but also to further strengthen relations between Mexico and Canada: trade, education, culture, and investment by Canadian companies in Mexico,” Sheinbaum said upon returning.

The chance to fix relations with Canada was but one of the reasons for attending the G7. Another was the opportunity to talk with Trump on neutral ground. There was also the opportunity for Sheinbaum to shed AMLO’s allergy to attending international summits, seeing such international travel as extravagant and being largely uninterested in foreign affairs – spare the radical politics championed by the government-subsidized La Jornada newspaper (such as Julian Assange) and Latin American matters involving leftists he considered fellow travellers. 

But has Sheinbaum cast aside AMLO parochial approach to international affairs? The long answer is no. 

AMLO campaigned in 2018 on the slogan, “The best foreign policy is domestic policy.” He infrequently travelled abroad – often repackaging domestic policy as the solution for international problems. He travelled to promote his “Sembrado Vida” reforestation program as a scheme to slow migration from Central America and pitched the UN Security Council on a “World Plan for Fraternity and Wellbeing.”

He often travelled on commercial flights – an act of apparent austerity that kept the focus firmly on his domestic political priorities, which at the time included selling the government aircraft. 

Sheinbaum broke with AMLO’s approach to international affairs by actually attending the G7. She continued with the rest of his kabuki, however. 

She demurred for weeks on attending the G7, suggesting it wasn't an easy decision. Then Sheinbaum announced the trip by emphasizing she would take commercial flights to Calgary – the closest city to the G7 site at Kananaskis. 

Sure enough, much of the Mexican media coverage – and especially the 4T influencers – focused on her being a road warrior by taking a nearly six-hour Air Canada flight to Vancouver, with a connection to Calgary. The Mexican consulate in Calgary made sure to have – presumably – members of the smallish Mexican community there to greet her upon arrival. 

She travelled back immediately after the summit, putting the priority on the mañanera (morning press conference).

Partisans couldn’t help but point out how her travelling on commercial flights compared with PAN and PRI presidents taking the now-sold presidential aircraft. But they omitted the fact that a government aircraft left Mexico City at the same time, travelling to Canada without the president.

The focus on travel showed the small-beer mentality of the 4T influencers and Morena officials, whose posts, meant to exalt the president’s appearance at a major international summit, betrayed insecurities of somehow not belonging – despite Sheinbaum being invited by Carney, who has prioritized repairing relations with Mexico.

Sheinbaum herself seemed to feed those insecurities. She said after returning – while taking shots at the opposition – “There was a lot of recognition of what’s happening in Mexico, of its economic importance. At the summit, they spoke highly of Mexico. Some don’t want to believe it, but Mexico is very well regarded around the world.”

Mexico was highly regarded under past presidents, too – with the foreign investors and the financial press gushing over former president Enrique Peña Nieto and his reform agenda.

For its part, Sheinbaum’s critics said stupid things on social media, too, such as focusing on an advisor’s well-worn footwear – the kind of comments that AMLO could easily portray as classist.

Little mentioned by most observers: Sheinbaum’s comments to the G7 leaders. She followed AMLO’s example with an idealist discourse – “We may be idealists, but we prefer the call to Humanism, to surrender to conformity or silence,” she said at one point – by proposing a “world summit for economic well-being to strengthen cooperation for development and fair trade as the basis of lasting peace.” 

Sheinbaum’s G7 trip has to be considered a success, especially with the renewing of relations with Canada and meeting with the European Union and European Commission leaders to get a revamped trade deal done. But she’s still following AMLO’s parochial script on international relations: treating major summits as platforms for petty domestic politics and proposing idealistic fantasies. Hopefully she flips AMLO’s script at her next summit appearance.