a brief overview of Claudia Sheinbaum’s daily press

Thursday, October 31, is the 31st day of Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo’s presidency and the last day of her first month as Mexico’s first female president.

Like her predecessor and political mentor Andrés Manuel López Obrador during his six-year term, the 62-year-old former Mexico City mayor speaks to the media every weekday morning at the National Palace in Mexico City’s historic center.

Sheinbaum’s morning press conference, or MagnaneraThursday marks her 22nd year as president. Here’s a recap of some key parts of this morning’s episode, a throwback of sorts to Mexico News Daily’s previous series where we documented the former president’s press conferences.

New drug procurement model

Health Undersecretary Eduardo Clark García outlined the government’s new drug procurement model for Mexico’s public health system (read the MND report here).

Sheinbaum said the government will spend about 130 billion pesos ($6.5 billion) annually on medicines and medical supplies.

Sheinbaum promised that there would be “transparency” and “zero corruption” in the drug procurement process.

Sheinbaum defends reform of “constitutional supremacy”

The President has expressed support for the “constitutional supremacy” reform, which was approved by the Senate last week and the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday (read the MND report here) and has already been ratified by enough states to become law.

Constitutional reform would prevent legal challenges to constitutional amendments that were approved by Congress and ratified by a majority of state legislatures.

“The opposition has been talking about this issue of constitutional supremacy as if it were something new or something bad,” Sheinbaum said at her news conference Thursday.

“All of us who study, even if we haven’t studied law, know that the constitution is the supreme law,” she said.

“Constitutional supremacy” reform, Sheinbaum argued, simply enshrines the fact that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.

“We are going to support Cuba on humanitarian grounds”

Sheinbaum was asked about Mexico’s decision to send 400,000 barrels of oil to Cuba, which recently suffered a nationwide accident.

“We are going to support Cuba for humanitarian reasons. And besides, Mexico has never supported the blockade,” she said, referring to the United States embargo against the Caribbean island nation, which has been ruled by the Cuban Communist Party for about six decades.

“Just to put it into perspective,” Sheinbaum said, 400,000 barrels of oil “isn’t even one day’s production,” considering “Mexico produces 1.6 to 1.8 million barrels a day.”

“…Despite the criticism, we will support (Cuba) on humanitarian grounds,” she said.

Economic growth in the third quarter

“It exceeded all expectations,” Sheinbaum said of the Mexican economy’s 1.5% annual growth rate in the third quarter of 2024 (read the MND report here).

“…They said that GDP will not grow this quarter. Well, it did go up, 1.5%,” she said.

Sheinbaum will take part in the G20 summit in Brazil

The president told reporters on Thursday morning that she would attend the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro on November 18-19.

This will be Sheinbaum’s first trip abroad as president.

López Obrador did not attend a single G20 meeting during his presidency and was largely absent from the world stage during his six-year term, although he did attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ summit in San Francisco last year.

By Mexico News Daily Editor-in-Chief Peter Davis ((email protected))

* This is the first “Sheinbaum mañanera Brief” from MND, but look out for more in the series soon. (The President will not hold a Friday morning press conference due to the annual Day of the Dead holiday.)