Mexico and Peru signal readiness to restore diplomatic ties after Fujimori overture
President Claudia Sheinbaum instructs her foreign minister to contact Keiko Fujimori’s team, though Mexico maintains its criticism of Pedro Castillo’s detention.
Mexico and Peru have both signalled a willingness to restore full diplomatic relations, frozen since late 2022, after Peruvian president-elect Keiko Fujimori declared she had “every intention” of resuming ties. In response, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stated on 11 July that her government shared that intention and had asked Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco to establish direct communication with the incoming Peruvian administration to discuss the practicalities of normalisation. Sheinbaum noted that the rupture had been a unilateral decision by Lima, not Mexico.
From the Mexican government’s perspective, the diplomatic reset can proceed without altering its position on the ouster of former president Pedro Castillo. Sheinbaum reiterated that Mexico continues to view Castillo’s detention as arbitrary, a stance she said was recently reinforced by a United Nations working group that called for his immediate release. She added that Mexico’s view on the matter “is not going to change,” while leaving open the question of how Fujimori’s government will address the issue. Fujimori, who won a June runoff and takes office on 28 July, has not yet detailed her position on the Castillo case.
The break in relations originated when the government of then-president Andrés Manuel López Obrador granted asylum to Castillo’s family and later to former prime minister Betssy Chávez, who had been convicted for her role in Castillo’s attempt to dissolve Congress. Peru considered these acts interference in its internal affairs and expelled Mexico’s ambassador. The Mexican government at the time argued that Castillo’s removal and prosecution lacked legal justification, a position that the Sheinbaum administration has maintained.
With the foreign ministry now tasked to open a channel to Fujimori’s transition team, the two sides are expected to explore the terms under which embassies can be fully reopened and bilateral agreements reactivated. The overture stands in contrast to Mexico’s frozen relations with Ecuador, where Sheinbaum has refused to restore ties following a 2024 raid on its embassy in Quito. In the Peruvian case, the next concrete step will be the initial contact between Mexican diplomats and the incoming government, likely before Fujimori’s inauguration.
| Latin American press | +0.20 | neutral |
|---|---|---|
| Southeast Asian press | 0.00 | neutral |
Mexico opens the door but with conditions: the release of Castillo remains a non-negotiable point.
The bloc frames the rapprochement as a conditional exchange, where Mexico's willingness is tied to a prior demand, creating an asymmetric balance of power.
The vagueness of Fujimori's statement—offering no concrete steps—is downplayed, making the Mexican response appear more definitive than it is.
Peru seeks to mend ties with Mexico, but offers no specifics.
The bloc reduces the story to a bare factual exchange, stripping away context about the asylum dispute and Mexico's conditional stance, presenting it as a simple diplomatic gesture.
The conditionality of Mexico's response—its insistence on Castillo's release—is entirely absent, as is any mention of internal skepticism in either country.
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