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While Mexico celebrated the 216th anniversary of its independence on Wednesday with the defense of national sovereignty as its highest principle, the Donald Trump administration released a document with new demands for the government of Claudia Sheinbaum, including, "unmasking" the officials who help the cartels.
"Mexico's current investments in its security forces are insufficient to maintain and expand its campaigns against narco-terrorists, their finances, and their criminal networks," says the document made public by the State Department on Wednesday and sent to Congress the day before.
"This includes unmasking, arresting, and prosecuting the numerous corrupt public officials who have aided and been complicit with the cartels," the text adds.
On Wednesday, the most specialized units of the Mexican Navy and Army marched through the center of the capital with all types of helicopters and drones, while Sheinbaum pledged to "always keep our heads held high and shout to the four winds that Mexico will never be a colony or protectorate of anyone."
"Mexico does not bend, does not kneel, and Mexico is never for sale. Long live independence! Long live sovereignty!" she added during Wednesday's civil-military parade.
A similar message was delivered the day before during the "Grito" ceremony, where the president repeated the ritual of shouting vivas, ringing a bell, and waving the flag. The event commemorates the start of the war for independence from Spain in 1810, a struggle that culminated in 1821.
"Long live a free, independent, and sovereign Mexico!" she shouted on Tuesday night from the balcony of the National Palace, the presidential seat, before tens of thousands of people who echoed her vivas in a crowded Zocalo. The president also remembered indigenous peoples, Afro-Mexicans, and migrants.
Sinaloa resumes celebrations under heavy security
Meanwhile, violence was present in other areas of the country in different ways.
Some municipalities in the states of Chihuahua, Oaxaca, and Nuevo Leon suspended mass independence spectacles scheduled for Tuesday.
In Sinaloa, there was a celebration, but also the reinforcement of troops to guarantee security.
In this northwestern state, festivities were resumed after two years of cancellations due to the wave of violence that began in 2024 following the internal war between two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel.
The celebrations in its capital, Culiacan, were presided over by interim governor Graciela Dominguez Nava, who took office last month after the indefinite leave requested by ruling party politician Ruben Rocha, who has been formally charged by the United States with drug trafficking offenses along with other state officials.
Washington requested his arrest for extradition purposes, but the Sheinbaum government claims that there is no evidence to justify it.
The decision to resume festivities coincided with the federal government's deployment of more than 1,800 soldiers and police officers to the tourist city of Mazatlan to strengthen security in the state, where about 70 people have been murdered in the last two weeks. With this reinforcement, security forces in Sinaloa rose to nearly 20,000 personnel.
At the government palace in the capital, Culiacan, on Tuesday night, Dominguez Nava shouted vivas for the peace of Sinaloa, which was heavily guarded by soldiers and police.
The war within the Sinaloa Cartel began two years ago between "Los Chapitos" — followers of the sons of the convicted former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman — and those who support another of the organization's founders, also sentenced in the United States, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.
[Publicidad]