Spain’s King Felipe VI and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum have formally ended years of diplomatic tension between Spain and Mexico after meeting at the National Palace in Mexico City, using the monarch’s visit for the FIFA World Cup to symbolically reset relations between the two countries.
The widely anticipated handshake marked the clearest sign yet that both governments are moving beyond a dispute sparked in 2019 when then-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador demanded that Spain apologise for abuses committed during the colonial conquest of Mexico.
Felipe, who travelled to Mexico ahead of Spain’s World Cup final group-stage match against Uruguay in Guadalajara, held what both sides had described in advance as a brief meeting without a joint press conference.
Accompanied by Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares and Education and Sports Minister Milagros Tolón, the king took part in an official welcome ceremony at the National Palace, where the Mexican and Spanish national anthems were played before the two leaders posed together for the official photograph.
The image represented a decisive break from years of strained relations that had seen Sheinbaum decline to invite the Spanish monarch to her presidential inauguration in October 2024, prompting Spain not to send an official representative. ALSO READ: Spain boycotts Mexican president’s inauguration due to King Felipe snub.
The diplomatic chill also meant no member of the Spanish Royal Household attended last year’s Guadalajara International Book Fair, despite Spain being the guest country.
Although political relations had cooled, cultural, social and commercial ties between the two countries continued throughout the dispute. Mexico’s foreign ministry underlined that Spain remains Mexico’s second-largest trading partner within the European Union, with bilateral trade worth $11.1 billion. It added that the meeting ‘takes place in a context of strengthening bilateral relations and recent gestures by Spain acknowledging the importance of our country’s Indigenous peoples’.
Sheinbaum later shared a video of the ceremony on her YouTube channel, showing the two heads of state standing together beneath the flags of both nations before turning to shake hands as an announcer declared: ‘The official photograph of the heads of state will now be taken.’
The diplomatic rift began in 2019 when López Obrador, Sheinbaum’s political mentor and founder of the Morena party, sent a letter to Felipe VI asking the Spanish Crown to acknowledge the ‘crimes’ committed during the 16th-century conquest and apologise for them. The letter was leaked before reaching its recipient.
Felipe never responded publicly, while Spain’s government firmly rejected the request and defended the shared history of both nations. The disagreement became the starting point for years of diplomatic friction.
Sheinbaum nevertheless chose to take a different approach after succeeding López Obrador. Before the meeting she said: ‘A new line of communication has been opened.’ She added: ‘There will be a cordial meeting.’
Explaining her position, the Mexican president said she wanted to focus on ‘recognising originary people, their cultural grandeur, and what great civilizations in the past and native people today represent for Mexico.’
‘This is a question of dignity,’ she added.
The reconciliation has been built gradually through a series of diplomatic, cultural and economic gestures over recent months.
During a visit in March to an exhibition in Madrid dedicated to indigenous women in Mexico, Felipe acknowledged publicly that there had been ‘a lot of abuse’ during the colonial conquest. Foreign Minister Albares also referred at the same exhibition to the ‘pain and injustice’ suffered by ‘the originary people’ of the Americas. ALSO READ: Spain’s King Felipe VI acknowledges ‘much abuse’ in the conquest of the Americas.
Spain has also honoured several prominent Mexican institutions and figures, awarding the Cervantes Prize to writer Gonzalo Celorio and the Princess of Asturias Award to Mexico’s National Museum of Anthropology. In early June, Spanish Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo led a delegation of Spanish and Mexican business leaders in Mexico City to discuss plans to double bilateral trade by 2030.
Political contacts also intensified. In April, Sheinbaum travelled to Barcelona at the invitation of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to attend a summit of progressive leaders focused on the policies of US President Donald Trump. It was her first visit to Europe as president. ALSO READ: Mexico and Spain move to heal ties in landmark visit, easing colonial-era dispute.
While Sheinbaum has broadly maintained many of her predecessor’s foreign policy positions — including support for Cuba, difficult relations with Ecuador and backing for Peru’s Pedro Castillo — restoring relations with Spain has been one of the few significant departures from his approach.
The broader international context has also changed significantly since the original Spain-Mexico rift began. During Trump’s second presidency, the United States has repeatedly threatened military intervention in Mexico, accusing politicians of links to organised crime and questioning the future of existing economic agreements.
Against that backdrop, repairing relations with Spain — and, more broadly, with Europe — has taken on increased strategic importance for Mexico. The restoration of ties has coincided with closer cooperation between Mexico and the European Union, as well as improved relations with the United Kingdom.
After years of diplomatic frost, Thursday’s handshake between Felipe VI and Sheinbaum appears to have finally turned the page on one of the most unusual disputes between two countries whose cultural, historical and economic ties have remained strong despite political differences.
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En Palacio Nacional, tuvimos una cordial reunión con el rey de España, Felipe VI. Conversamos sobre la importancia de los pueblos originarios a lo largo de la historia y de los vínculos entre México y España.
— Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (@Claudiashein) June 26, 2026
Coincidimos en fortalecer la relación bilateral en beneficio de… pic.twitter.com/SUDTere1SG
El Rey es recibido por la presidenta de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, Claudia Sheinbaum, a su llegada en el Palacio Nacional de México.
— Casa de S.M. el Rey (@CasaReal) June 26, 2026
➡️https://t.co/jYU7vc3y9a pic.twitter.com/AYLzM1iYk9
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