BARCELONA — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum will travel to Barcelona this weekend to attend the Global Progressive Mobilization, a summit of progressive world leaders. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Colombian President Gustavo Petro are also scheduled to attend the gathering, which will be hosted by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

Sheinbaum described the summit as a gathering of leftist heads of state favoring peaceful solutions to conflicts. She said the trip is not an official state visit and that she is not scheduled to meet King Felipe VI.

"No, it's not an anti-Trump meeting. Not in the least," Sheinbaum said. "We respect President Trump. He takes decisions that we don't think are correct, but that's another matter."

The visit comes as Mexico and Spain have had a diplomatic freeze since 2019 stemming from Spain's refusal to apologize for colonial-era atrocities against Indigenous peoples. In 2021, then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote a letter demanding that the Spanish monarchy apologize for atrocities against Indigenous peoples during the conquest of Mexico. Spain rejected the demand, arguing that contemporary standards cannot be used to judge past actions. López Obrador described the dispute as a "pause" in relations, though the two countries maintained formal diplomatic ties throughout.

Spain sent no official representative to Sheinbaum's presidential inauguration in 2024. Spanish officials said they were offended that King Felipe VI was not invited to the ceremony.

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares has recognized that Spanish colonial actions caused injustice and pain for Indigenous Mexican communities.

Columnist Alejo Sánchez Cano wrote in El Financiero that the trip carries diplomatic risk given relations with Washington. "Any sign of ideological alignment that can be interpreted as a distancing from the [U.S.] agenda introduces a factor of risk," Sánchez Cano wrote.