On June 25, Spain's King Felipe VI made a stop in Mexico City before heading to Guadalajara to watch his country's soccer team face Uruguay in the 2026 World Cup. What happened during that stopover — a one-hour meeting with President Claudia Sheinbaum at Palacio Nacional — quietly marked the most significant diplomatic reset between Mexico and Spain in nearly a decade.
The meeting was described by Sheinbaum as "cordial" on her social media. Spain's Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares called it an "extraordinary moment" in the two countries' relations. Neither government released a joint declaration. No formal agreements were signed. And yet the symbolism was impossible to ignore: a Spanish monarch, standing inside the palace built on the ruins of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlán, sitting across from a Mexican president who made Indigenous peoples the first item on the agenda.
