Mexico at the UN: Velasco Defends Sovereignty and Calls for Renewing the Organization; Reiterates Support for Cuba and Recognition of Palestine

ByArturo Sánchez Jiménez

This article by Arturo Sánchez Jiménez originally appeared in the September 25, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Mexico “has shown that a country can cooperate closely and respectfully with its partners and at the same time fully assert its sovereignty,” Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco Álvarez said this Friday before the 81st General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) in New York, where he maintained that the organization faces “a challenge of enormous magnitude” to renew itself and fulfill its founding mandate, in addition to reiterating recognition of the State of Palestine and support for Cuba in the face of “any unilateral economic measure” contrary to the UN Charter.

Representing President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, the foreign minister said that this challenge of renewal implies “preserving humanity from the scourge of armed conflicts, protecting human rights, improving the situation of millions of vulnerable people, and ensuring the validity of international law.” He added that the reform must also reach the organization’s leadership, in reference to the upcoming election of the Secretary-General: “in the United Nations, too, it is time for women,” he stated.

Velasco Álvarez noted that Mexico, together with Norway, is promoting the UN80 Global group, aimed at a “more effective and more transparent” reform of the organization, and maintained that the legitimacy of international institutions depends on their capacity to “transform people’s lives in practice.”

He further explained that, together with Qatar, Norway, and Switzerland, the country is promoting the strengthening of the organization’s mediation capacities, under the premise that “every conflict that diplomacy prevents is worth more than all those that force claims to resolve.”

The foreign minister insisted that the sovereignty of states does not depend on their power.

Sovereignty is not measured in armies or in material resources. All nations, all peoples, are worth the same before the law.

Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco Álvarez

Mexico, he said, has shown that it is possible to “cooperate closely and respectfully” with its partners “and at the same time fully assert its sovereignty,” since “no nation builds its future from isolation” and “its sovereignty is strengthened in dialogue and respectful collaboration with all peoples.”

In his address, the Mexican official reiterated the country’s historic position regarding Cuba. “We will continue sending humanitarian aid to meet the most urgent needs of its population,” he said, and ratified “the solidarity with the people of Cuba” that Mexico has maintained “for more than six decades,” as well as the rejection “of any unilateral economic measure contrary to the Charter of the United Nations.”

On the Middle East, Velasco Álvarez noted that Mexico “has defended the two-state solution for decades” and recognizes the State of Palestine, “with the right of its people to live in peace within secure and recognized borders.” He maintained that, in the face of ongoing international conflicts, “international law must prevail over force” and that “the civilian population must be protected.”

The foreign minister framed these positions within the constitutional principles of Mexican foreign policy—self-determination of peoples, non-intervention, peaceful settlement of disputes, and the legal equality of states—which, he said, coincide with the purposes of the San Francisco Charter.

“Mexico does not need to adapt its foreign policy to the Charter of the United Nations, since it has it written into its Constitution,” he expressed.

In his speech, Velasco reviewed what he called “five facts” of the Sheinbaum government: the reduction of poverty by more than 13 million people between 2018 and 2024, the drop of around 51 percent in intentional homicides in 22 months, the real increase of 154 percent in the minimum wage since 2018, gender parity in the cabinet and Congress, and the exercise of a foreign policy that he described as “sovereign and independent.”