Mexico returns to the international arena with Claudia Sheinbaum’s attendance at the G20

Claudia Sheinbaum made her first trip abroad as president of Mexico to attend the G20 summit in Brazil.

The first trip abroad ofClaudia SheinbaumAs Mexican president, her participation in the G20 summit in Brazil represents an opportunity to gain international support in anticipation of Donald Trump ‘s return to the presidency of the United States, a forum in which the president will challenge military powers with an anti-arms proposal.

Unlike former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), who never traveled to this annual summit, Sheinbaum will take advantage of her role as Mexico’s first female head of state to propose allocating 1% of global arms spending to reduce major problems, such as poverty and gender inequality.

To defend her project, Sheinbaum, who left for Brazil this Sunday, announced that she will present the peasant program ‘Sembrando Vida’ , created by López Obrador, as an example of how “instead of sowing war, life and peace should be sown.”

The president explained at a conference that in 2023, 2.7 trillion dollars were allocated for weapons in the world and “in recent years the arms budget has grown almost three times more than the growth of the world economy.”

hat 1% would amount to around $27 billion, almost half of the $46.4 billion requested by the UN in its “Global Humanitarian Outlook 2024” to help 180 million people in extreme need.

From discourse to reality

Bárbara González, an internationalist expert in political communication, considered that Sheinbaum’s proposal “will make headlines and columns will be written praising it” , although it will hardly be taken into account by the great military powers, particularlyUSA.

The expert ruled out that the initiative would cause real diplomatic tension, and assessed that it could generate a reaction from Trump, who from the López Obrador government “understood well that the discourse of the ruling party in Mexico is just that, discourse.”

However, the expert warned of the “contrast of this pacifist vision promoted abroad with the militarization in Mexico” promoted by the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) party since the previous government.

“The proposal assumes that outside of Mexico the link between the ruling party and the militarization of the country is unknown,” said González, a relationship that can be seen in the delegation of megaprojects to the Armed Forces and the recent reform to give the Army control of the National Guard.

A turn in foreign policy

Sheinbaum has shown a more proactive approach to foreign policy, in contrast to López Obrador, who for six years almost never left the country and only attended one international summit, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) in November 2023.

José Joel Peña, a professor of foreign policy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), highlighted that Sheinbaum’s “pragmatic” vision opens up “the possibility of positioning Mexico again as a leader in global issues such as the fight against poverty, climate change and the reform of international institutions ,” priority issues promoted by Brazil as president of the G20 this year.

Mexico could thus assume a leading role among the emerging economies at the summit, especially in the session on the reform of global governance and the need to reorient international priorities, the professor noted.

The Foreign Ministry confirmed that Sheinbaum will meet with the presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; of France, Emmanuel Macron; and of South Korea, Yoon Suk-Yeol.

As well as with the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer; of India, Narendra Modi; of Japan, Shigeru Ishiba; and of Vietnam, Pham Minh Chinh, and Canada, Justin Trudeau, in the context of the upcoming review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (T-MEC) in 2026.

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