The Cancellation of US Visas Is Political, the President Responds. And It Is Interventionism.

BySugeyry Romina Gándara

This article by Sugeyry Romina Gándara originally appeared in the August 14, 2026 edition of SinEmbargo.

Mexico City, August 14 (SinEmbargo).— President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (CSP) held that the cancellation by the United States (US) of the visa of Andrés Manuel López Beltrán, son of former head of state Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), has a political background and constitutes an attempt to interfere in Mexican politics.

“My opinion is that this cancellation of visas that they have carried out, they call them politically exposed persons, has an essentially political meaning, because it is not applied evenly to all countries,”

Sheinbaum asserted during her morning press conference this Friday.

In that regard, she maintained that Mexico’s response to this type of decision must be firm and grounded in the defense of its sovereignty. For that reason, she noted that if the neighbor to the north has evidence linking a Mexican citizen to a crime or justifying barring them from its territory, it must present compelling proof to substantiate that determination.

“What has to be done when a visa matter comes up? Well, you have to be brave, there is nothing else for it,” she affirmed.

Separately, the President criticized the national leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Alejandro Moreno Cárdenas, and the PRIAN governments, whom she considered “sellouts” for their stance toward the country to the north.

“That is my opinion because I do not see any other reason. And who uses it? Well, the Mexican right, which is increasingly a sellout to the United States,” she stressed.

The head of the Executive particularly questioned that Moreno Cárdenas travels to the US to request that visas be revoked from Mexican citizens, since she considered that resorting to a foreign government to intervene in matters related to Mexico represents a stance contrary to national sovereignty.

“There you have the president of the PRI going to the United States, it is shameful, to ask that Mexicans’ visas be taken away. A man, by the way, of dubious reputation, but the only thing he has to offer is telling the US take away the visa of this one, this one, and this one, because they spoke badly of me,” she reproached.

In parallel, she pointed to the governments of the National Action Party (PAN), particularly the administrations of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón, as part of a period in which, in her judgment, the door was opened to a greater presence of US agencies in Mexico.

She stated that this stance is part of a conservative current that has historically resorted to foreign forces to intervene in national affairs, and to illustrate it, she recalled the conservative groups of the 19th century that went abroad to promote the arrival of Maximilian of Habsburg and establish a monarchy in Mexico.

“They are like those 19th-century conservatives who went looking for Maximilian so that a foreign monarch would govern Mexico because here there was no capacity to do so,” she noted.

In this regard, Sheinbaum stated that her government instead claims the historical figures who defended national independence and sovereignty, as well as the generations of Mexicans who opposed foreign invasions.

They are heirs of Santa Anna, they are heirs of Maximilian. Not us, we are heirs of Juárez, we are heirs of the Mexican liberals, we are heirs of Madero, we are heirs of Leona Vicario, of Josefa Ortiz, of the priest Hidalgo, of Morelos.

President Claudia Sheinbaum

Finally, the President asked the neighboring nation to respect Mexico’s sovereignty and emphasized that, just as the Mexican government does not intervene in that country’s political decisions, Washington should not do so in Mexican internal affairs either.

“We do not weigh in on their election, that is a decision of the American people, but in Mexican politics as well, the one who decides is the people of Mexico,” she maintained.

At the same time, she took the opportunity to recall that the bilateral relationship must be maintained through cooperation and coordination, but under conditions of equality.

“There should be no interference from any country, from none,” she stressed. “We collaborate, we coordinate, but as equals.”