Mexico’s First Female President Is Redefining Power

Claudia Sheinbaum’s first year in power is reshaping her country — and what it means to be a leftist politician.

Mexico matters more than most of the world realizes. It is the United States’ top trading partner, the world’s 12th-largest economy, and the hinge of the Americas: a country whose decisions ripple across supply chains, migration flows, climate policy, and security on both sides of the border.

Whoever governs Mexico is never just a local story. That is why Claudia Sheinbaum’s first year as president deserves attention.

Sheinbaum is Mexico’s first woman to hold the office and only the second progressive in more than three decades. Many expected her to be a carbon copy of her mentor and predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the fiery leftist who dominated Mexican politics for six years.

Instead, Sheinbaum has emerged as a quiet revolutionary, redefining both Mexico’s left and its role in the world, in several concrete aspects.