“There Would Be No Freedom, Well-Being, or Rights Without Sovereignty,” Sheinbaum Says from Tamaulipas

BySinEmbargo Newsroom

This article by the SinEmbargo newsroom originally appeared in the August 16, 2026 edition of SinEmbargo.

Mexico City, August 16 (SinEmbargo).— President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (CSP) once again placed national sovereignty as an indispensable principle for guaranteeing the rights and well-being of the population, after she called the cancellation of the visa of Andrés Manuel López Beltrán, son of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, an act of interference by the United States (US).

During the inauguration of the IMSS-Bienestar Ciudad Madero General Hospital, in Tamaulipas, the president recalled that well-being is one of the words that define the Fourth Transformation and that her government has kept that principle as one of its main priorities.

“That is why we have fought all our lives and will keep doing so until the last day of our lives: fighting for the well-being of the people of Mexico, for the rights of the people of Mexico. And there would be no freedom, no well-being, and no rights if there is no sovereignty,” she declared.

Along these lines, she stressed that one of the axis of her administration is also the transformation of the health system, and she asserted that the population has begun to perceive the progress in this sector.

“There we go, and people are happy. It is always important to listen to the people; that is the way we govern, listening and working every day. […] That is why we likewise defend Mexico’s sovereignty, just as we defend the well-being of the people of Mexico,” she noted.

In parallel, the president criticized what she considered 36 years of neglect of various public sectors, a period she placed between 1982 and 2018, corresponding to the governments led by the PRIAN.

“They were six presidential terms of neglect of education, of health, of housing, of wages, of employment. Those are the years of the neoliberal period in our country,” she maintained.

It is worth noting that this past Friday, when speaking about the political backdrop that, from her perspective, the cancellation of López Beltrán’s visa entails, Sheinbaum used the term “sellouts” (entreguistas) to refer to members of the Mexican far right, particularly for their stance on US interference and amid the debate over the relationship between the two countries.

Faced with that period, the head of the Executive defended the 4T project and asserted that it seeks to recover the public character of services such as health, education, and housing, since they are to be understood as rights of the population and not as commodities.

“Public health has to be the best in all of Mexico. After 36 years of neglect and corruption—but we are stubborn, and we are going to recover access to providing public health,” she stated.