Mexico and France announce plan to boost economic and cultural ties after leaders meet

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico and France announced plans Friday to boost their economic partnership and cultural cooperation as Mexico seeks to strengthen trade relationships with Europe while still under tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

The announcement came after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum met with her French counterpart Emmanuel Macron at the National Palace in the Mexican capital, which marked the European leader’s first official visit to Mexico.

It follows months of Mexico attempting to get closer to the European Union in the face of trade tensions with the United States, the main market for its products.

Washington currently applies tariffs up to 50% on Mexican products, including steel, copper and tomatoes, and others not covered by the free trade agreement between Mexico, the United States and Canada (the USMCA).

“Today we begin a new chapter in our strategic alliance, one that demands — and that we want to be — even more global,” Macron said at a press conference, announcing that both governments had committed to boosting economic cooperation. He affirmed that the 700 French companies operating in the country would continue investing and creating jobs, especially in the aerospace sector.

French companies currently generate around 150,000 direct jobs and 700,000 indirect jobs in Mexico, according to Macron.

Mexico and France strengthened trade relations in the last two decades after the signing of the European Union-Mexico Free Trade Agreement, which went into effect in 2000. France is the sixth largest European investor in Mexico.

For her part, Sheinbaum said that next year’s renewal of the trade agreement with the European Union — which will coincide with the bicentennial of diplomatic relations between Mexico and France — will provide many opportunities for economic cooperation between the two nations.

Sheinbaum also highlighted the acceptance of the reciprocal temporary treaties on the exhibition of the pre-Hispanic handwritten manuscripts known as codices: Azcatitlan, which France has and promises to bring to Mexico, and the Boturini codices that will be exhibited in France.

“These codices are fundamental to the relationship between Europe and Mexico. They represent Mexico’s living memory of our history,” she added.

In 2020, the government of then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024) made arrangements with the French authorities to request the return of the Codex Bourbon and the Codex Azcatitlan.

For Mexico, the return of the Azcatitlan Codex is of great value because of the information it contains on the development of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Mexica empire, from its foundation to the 17th century, said José Alfonso Suárez del Real y Aguilera, political adviser to the General Coordination of Social Communication of the Presidency.

The Boturini Codex is a 16th-century manuscript that tells the story of the migration of the Mexica people from their place of origin to the founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlan.