The Photo and the Silence
Sometimes history doesn’t move forward through speeches, but through silence.
By Ghaleb Krame
Sometimes history doesn’t move forward through speeches, but through silence.
On September 3, 2025, inside Mexico’s National Palace, an image became a symbol: Claudia Sheinbaum, newly inaugurated as president, shaking hands with Senator Marco Rubio — one of Washington’s toughest Republicans on Mexico. There was no treaty, no joint statement, no burst of enthusiasm. Just a carefully measured, diplomatic photograph.
That image marked the beginning of a new political clock. From that moment on, everything the Mexican government did — or failed to do — would be read through that lens: cooperation, distance, and gestures.
In Washington, the photo was seen as a tacit commitment to collaborate on the three issues that dominate the bilateral agenda: drugs, guns, and extraditions. In Mexico, it was framed instead as an act of cordial sovereignty.
Two readings, two narratives, one snapshot.
Weeks later, the president changed the tone again, announcing she would not attend the Tenth Summit of the Americas in Punta Cana, in protest over the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. The boycott was praised by some as a gesture of regional dignity, and criticized by others as a needless diplomatic misstep. Yet the photo at the Palace and the absence from the Summit ended up telling the same story: that of a president who wants to be an ally, but not a subordinate.
International politics, however, is never played in a vacuum.
Mexico reaches the end of this year facing a difficult equation: economic pressure, rising public debt, Pemex losses that threaten the national budget, and a social mood that grows more volatile by the week. The president’s success depends less on summits abroad than on keeping stability at home.
While analysts debate diplomacy, a different kind of tension is felt in the streets — protests over insecurity, transport blockades, teachers’ strikes, and a growing civic fatigue spilling beyond the boundaries of polite debate. Polls still show relatively high approval, but the trend is downward. The intangible — patience — is beginning to wear thin.
Sheinbaum came to power promising “continuity with method”: to maintain the Fourth Transformation’s project, but with order, planning, and composure. For the first few months, she seemed to achieve it. Her calm demeanor contrasted with her predecessor’s style. But in politics, calm erodes too. And the country is showing signs of unease: governors acting independently, internal disputes within Morena, and a cabinet split between technicians and militants — two souls pulling in different directions.
The president faces the classic dilemma of any leader who inherits a charismatic movement: how to govern without betraying the founder’s mystique, yet without becoming trapped in his shadow. AMLO built a narrative of “the people versus the elite”; Sheinbaum needs one of “the State with the people.” The difference is subtle but decisive.
In that search, symbols weigh as much as policy.
That’s why the handshake with Rubio and the Summit boycott aren’t isolated events — they’re chapters of the same identity strategy. Mexico wants to present itself as a sovereign actor: open to dialogue with all, submissive to none.
The problem is that discursive sovereignty doesn’t always translate into practical strength.
Meanwhile, the northern border faces increasing migration flows and logistical pressure; organized crime adapts with drones, digital finance, and shifting territorial control; and the justice system still struggles with its own credibility crisis. None of that depends on the U.S. State Department — it depends on Mexico’s daily governance.
Even so, the president retains two valuable assets: legitimacy of origin and political time.
She still has room to reshape her narrative before exhaustion turns into rejection. What’s at stake is not just her administration, but the credibility of the model of governance she embodies.
Beyond the technical debates, Mexico today faces a crisis of expectations. Society demands visible results — less epic, more efficiency.
The country doesn’t need another “transformation”; it needs the existing one to actually work.
The new political generation must understand that credibility isn’t earned with press conferences or hashtags, but with coherence. In an era when algorithms detect contradictions faster than journalists, governments can no longer hide the noise beneath the rug of rhetoric.
That’s why Sheinbaum’s greatest challenge won’t be Washington, nor the local elites, nor the usual critics — it will be the everyday country: the one that wakes early, pays higher electricity bills, hesitates, protests.
That country doesn’t read official statements; it feels reality.
Ultimately, “the photo and the silence” are the metaphor of a six-year term still searching for its own voice.
A president who wants to keep calm, yet governs on ground that constantly trembles — the economy, trust, patience.
And perhaps true leadership lies precisely in that: knowing when to break the silence, and how to speak differently from those who came before.
Claudia Sheinbaum’s political clock keeps ticking — not toward conflict, but toward definition.
The photo was only the beginning; what’s missing is the story behind the gesture.