The Foreign Ministry plans to transform its Unit for North America into Undersecretariat

Arturo Sánchez Jiménez

La Jornada newspaper
Sunday, September 21, 2025, p. 8

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) will transform its Unit for North America into the Undersecretariat for North America, according to a internal regulation project available on the National Commission of Regulatory Improvement Commission (CONAMER). The agency will be in charge of Roberto Velasco Álvarez, current chief of the Unit, who last Friday was referred to as “Undersecretary” by both President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo and Foreign Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente, during the daily press conference in the National Palace.

The new undersecretariat will have the responsibility of coordinating the Mexican section of the International Commission of Limits and Water between Mexico and the United States, issuing guidelines on bilateral political matters regarding international limits and waters, supervising the application of border treaties and promoting the equitable use of shared resources. In addition, it will serve as an institutional link with the corresponding Mexican sections and with other diplomatic dependencies and representations abroad.

The regulation project also considers the creation of the Headquarters of Intersectoral Coordination Unit, with functions of agreement and supervision of diplomatic and economic promotion actions and economic, cultural, tourist and sports promotion, in coordination with Mexican representations abroad.

On the other hand, some executive and general addresses of the 2021 version are eliminated or renamed, such as the Executive Directorate of Cultural and Tourist Diplomacy and that of Public Strategy and Diplomacy, adapting the structure to the new priorities of foreign policy.

The draft also incorporates a new article 2, which indicates the conduct of transversal programs to promote and implement substantive gender equality within the Secretariat and in foreign policy, a provision that did not exist in the Regulation of 2021.

The decree will enter into force the day after its publication in the Official Gazette of the Federation. The units will have 180 business days to adapt manuals, procedures and structures to the new organization, without requiring additional resources to the approved budget. With these modifications, SRE seeks to strengthen intersectoral coordination and consolidate the presence and influence of Mexico in North America and other areas of its foreign policy.