Juan Ramón de la Fuente has stepped down as Mexico’s foreign affairs minister for health reasons and is set to be replaced by Deputy Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco.
President Claudia Sheinbaum announced de la Fuente’s decision to resign on social media.
El Doctor Juan Ramón de la Fuente tomó la decisión de dejar el cargo de secretario de Relaciones Exteriores por motivos de salud. Es parte de nuestro proyecto y, cuando termine su rehabilitación, se reincorporará con nosotros en otra tarea.
He decidido proponer al Senado de la… pic.twitter.com/nxg1awheqi— Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (@Claudiashein) April 1, 2026
According to the newspaper Reforma, the outgoing foreign minister advised colleagues of his resignation in a written message, telling them that he asked Sheinbaum to allow him to leave his position in order to attend to a spinal problem for which he has already undergone surgery on two occasions.
He told colleagues that he may need to have another operation in order to remain “active” and “productive.”
De la Fuente, a 74-year-old psychiatrist and former rector of the National Autonomous University, said in his message that Sheinbaum has appointed Velasco, deputy foreign minister for North America, as his successor.
“I know his leadership, I know his loyalty. He will be a foreign minister who provides great support to the president from this ministry,” he wrote of Velasco, who has headed up the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s North America department since 2020.
De la Fuente, who served as Mexico’s health minister in the 1990s and as the country’s permanent representative to the United Nations between 2018 and 2023, became foreign affairs minister at the start of Sheinbaum’s presidency on Oct. 1, 2024.
He has been particularly active in defending the rights of Mexicans who live abroad, especially in the United States. De la Fuente has also been involved in negotiations with the Trump administration on issues such as security and trade.
Velasco, 38, stood in as head of the Foreign Affairs Ministry late last year while de la Fuente was on medical leave.
Sheinbaum: ‘I told him, don’t go, Juan Ramón’
Accompanied by de la Fuente and Velasco, Sheinbaum announced the foreign minister’s decision to step down in a video message on Wednesday afternoon.
“I already told him, ‘Don’t go, Juan Ramón,’ but he has this health problem and he has decided that he needs this space for rehabilitation,” she said.
The president said that de la Fuente “will continue helping us on different issues” and will return to the government in an unspecified position when he has completed his rehabilitation.
Sheinbaum said that Velasco is an international relations “expert,” with “a lot of knowledge” about Mexico’s foreign policy. She wrote on social media that she had decided to propose his appointment as foreign minister to the Senate.
For his part, De la Fuente thanked the president for allowing him to be part of her “political project” — i.e., the “fourth transformation” movement founded by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and now led by Sheinbaum. He said that defending Mexico and assisting and supporting Mexicans abroad, regardless of their migratory status, had been “a great privilege.”
De la Fuente also said that Velasco has been a “great colleague” and declared he was certain that his tenure as foreign minister would be “very successful.”
Velasco thanked Sheinbaum for her confidence in him and said it was an “enormous honor” to be nominated as foreign minister. He said he would take on the position with “a lot of love for the people” and “a lot of commitment to our country.”
“Of course if the Senate ratifies me [as foreign minister], we’re going to continue with this work of defending the sovereignty of Mexico and protecting Mexicans across the whole world,” Velasco said.
With reports from Reforma, El Universal and Milenio
Mexicana has sold more than 1 million tickets in 2 years
Two years and three months after the state-owned commercial airline Mexicana began operations, director Leobardo Ávila Bojórquez provided an update on the carrier’s “situation.”
He said that since December 2023, the airline has sold 1.02 million tickets, transported 953,624 passengers and flown 14,473 flights. Data presented by Ávila showed that Mexicana has a 95% satisfaction rating among passengers. In 2025, Mexicana was Mexico’s fifth most popular airline for domestic flights with over 434,000 passengers.
Ávila noted that Mexicana flies to 14 destinations around Mexico, with the Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA) in México state serving as the airline’s hub. Among the destinations the airline serves are Tulum, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, Mérida, Campeche, Ciudad Victoria, Ixtepec, Monterrey, Guadalajara and Tijuana.
Ávila said that Mexicana will receive seven new Embraer planes this year, and add new routes from AIFA to Acapulco in June and AIFA to Hermosillo in July.
Later in the press conference, Sheinbaum said that Mexicana offers “more affordable prices” than other airlines and declared that “its vision is not about profit per se.”
“Obviously, all companies have to be profitable because it’s not about subsidizing state-owned companies,” she added.
Sheinbaum highlighted that Mexican flies to airports that other commercial airlines don’t fly to, and declared that traveling with the state-owned carrier is an “extraordinary experience.”
“I invite you to use Mexicana de Aviación,” she said, adding that the operations of the airline are going “very well.”
Sheinbaum takes aim at politicians who speak badly of Mexico on US television
Sheinbaum told reporters that Mexico is a “free and democratic” country and people can “freely” express their opinions.
However, “what we constantly say here is that not agreeing with the government is one thing … and another very different thing is to speak [badly] about Mexico,” she said.
“I’m very critical of the deputies and senators who go to the U.S. television stations to speak badly of Mexico and to request the intervention of the United States in Mexico,” Sheinbaum said.
Senator Lilly Téllez again took the opportunity to criticize the Sheinbaum administration in the context of the World Cup on Fox News.
“What is that?” she questioned with visible exasperation.
“When had this occurred before? The nerve of it,” Sheinbaum said before accusing politicians who speak badly of Mexico of being unpatriotic and failing to stand up for the country’s sovereignty.
One Mexican politician who has appeared frequently on Fox News is National Action Party Senator Lilly Téllez, who has declared herself in favor of a U.S. military intervention in Mexico to combat drug cartels.
Sheinbaum: Low chance of the political right returning to power in Mexico
Asked whether there was a “risk” that the political right could return to power in Mexico, Sheinbaum said she saw the possibility as unlikely.
“From my perspective, the probability is very low,” she said.
“We see it in the polls, it’s not just a subjective perception — the polls show it,” Sheinbaum said.
“And people live better today than they lived before,” she added.
That — in part at least — was apparently a reference to the significant reduction in poverty that has been achieved in recent years, the increase in the minimum wage and the increase in government support for citizens via the provision of various welfare and social programs.
Sheinbaum — who was backed by the leftist Morena party at the 2024 presidential election — is an extremely popular president, with many, but not all, polls consistently finding that she has an approval rating of around 70% or higher.
Since Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected president in 2018, Morena has been Mexico’s predominant political party. It governs a majority of Mexico’s 32 federal entities and holds majorities in both houses of federal Congress.