Then the Mexican Revolution came and the United States took part in the coup d'état against Madero. The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Wilson, was the one who promoted the coup against Madero, his removal, and then his assassination along with Vice President Pino Suárez. And in 1914, the United States tried to invade us again. And Carranza and the revolutionaries said, 'No, we Mexicans have to solve our own problems.' That is why here in Sinaloa, it is fitting to always say: interference does not solve problems.
Interference causes violence. What does Mexico ask for? Sovereignty and cooperation for development, which is what generates peace.
Back there. How are you?
Thank you so much for this welcome. Long live... Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you to Governor Graciela Domínguez, and thank you for your welcome.
Gracias.
We are touring the country. We are about to complete two years at the head of the government of the republic. And just as in 2025, I decided to tour the country again.
I think I've come to Sinaloa about 10 times since I took office. And this time, we have come to give an account of our work and to propose actions.
Politics. Good politics. Politics that comes from the heart. Because we don't do politics with hatred. We do politics with love. Above all, love for the people, which is the most important thing in any government.
We have already visited — just think — 26 states in 3 weeks. The constitution says that every 1st of September we must report to the people. We report to the people every day, because every day we hold the people's trust. But we also tour the country to inform and to give an account.
On this occasion, besides telling you in a moment everything we have done and are going to do in Sinaloa, it is fitting, especially being here, to remember that September is the month of the homeland.
216 years ago, a village priest in Dolores, Guanajuato, went out to cry for independence. We had been a Spanish colony for 300 years. Unlike all of Latin America, where every country was a Spanish colony, and in our territory, which was then New Spain, and unlike those countries where it was Creole military officers who called for independence, in Mexico it was the people that has kept the people of Mexico ever since in the fight to defend independence and sovereignty.
Hidalgo went out one early morning on the 16th of September and told the people, who were barely 12 at that point, 'Compatriots, we must fight for the independence of America.'
A few days later, there were hundreds. A few days later, thousands. At that time, Hidalgo called for independence, but a few days later, he called for the abolition of slavery. That seems normal to us now, but back then it wasn't. Mexico was the only country in all of America that called for the abolition of slavery.
From the beginning, in the words of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the people of Mexico, the popular struggle, fought for independence, for sovereignty, for freedom, and for social justice.
Another independence leader came, José María Morelos, another very wise priest. He spent years fighting. Hidalgo fought only 6 months. In four months, he wrote 44 documents. Morelos fought for several years, and besides independence, he called for sovereignty. That is different.
Independence is simply not being a colony of any country, not being a protectorate. Calling for sovereignty means that sovereignty emanates from the people. What does that mean? That no foreign power defines the destiny of the people of Mexico. That no elite defines the future of the homeland. That it is the people of Mexico who define it.
Just look how many years ago Morelos said it. It wasn't enshrined in the Constitution until 1857, but to this day, Article 39 says it: sovereignty emanates from the people.
In 2018, the people of Mexico said, 'It's time for a new transformation.' President Andrés Manuel López Obrador came to govern and began to change the country. Let me give you several examples.
First, he raised the minimum wage. In 2018, the minimum wage was 2,800 pesos a month. In 2026, it is more than 9,500 pesos a month, and wages will keep rising above inflation.
During that period, they said: if wages go up, there will be inflation. If wages go up, the peso will be devalued. If wages go up, there will be no investment. Well, wages rose 154% in real terms, and there is no inflation.
The peso is one of the strongest currencies in the world, and we are at a record for foreign direct investment. It was all nonsense.
And then the welfare programs came to our country. It is love turned into policy. Love turned into government action. Love for the people. Before, in that period, governing was for a few, or a few had taken over the government in 2018. And then when we won in 2024, we arrived proudly as governments of the people, by the people, and for the people of Mexico.
Here in Sinaloa, 378,886 older adults receive their pension. You turn 65, you sign up, you get the card from the People's Bank, the Banco del Bienestar, and every two months you start receiving 6,400 pesos.
Handouts, say our adversaries. In fact, a former president says that whoever receives the pension is lazy. Well, he says it in other words, but I won't repeat them. What do we say to that? Older adults are heroes and heroines of the homeland. Why? Because they have given their lives to their families, their towns, their communities, and the nation.
Indigenous peoples revere older adults, and so do we, because they are the wise ones, the ones with experience, the ones who must pass their knowledge on to new generations. And furthermore, the pension is now a right in the constitution.
Thanks to our deputies and senators here in Sinaloa, 89,744 people with disabilities also receive a pension.
12,000 young people are in the Youth Building the Future program. 121,289 young people received the Benito Juárez scholarship if they study at upper secondary level.
They also told us, and still tell us, that it's very bad for all young people to have a scholarship because we're not teaching them a culture of effort. Of course, all young people should dedicate themselves to study. But when the classroom is divided between the student who has a scholarship and the one who doesn't — supposedly the good student and the bad student — that does a lot of harm to young people.
I tested it myself when I was head of government of Mexico City. Not here. Here, we support all families and all young people. That's why everyone who studies in public upper secondary school has a scholarship.
Then 34,000 small producers receive Production for Well-being. 59,154 recipients of free fertilizer.
9,184 in the Sewing Life program. And now all secondary school students also receive their scholarship. 124,535 of them. And starting this year — and now I'm getting to the young people, I'm getting there.
Primary school girls and boys received their school supplies and uniform support. If they didn't receive it, they should get it at school. They sign up for the school supplies and uniform support.
Now also women aged 60 to 64 receive the Women's Well-being pension, only for women. It is recognition of the care work that has been done. You've already heard me say this, right? Who is it that mainly takes care of girls and boys? Who takes care of the home? We reach 60 years old. We already have grown children. I know, because I'm a mother. I'm a grandmother.
And now who do we care for when the children are grown? The grandchildren. Who recognizes that work, or used to? Nobody. Now when we arrived, I said all of us women have arrived at the presidency of the republic. That's why when you turn 60, there is the Women's Well-being pension, only for women.
Here in Sinaloa, which has about 3 million inhabitants, 1,128,000 people receive a welfare program directly, without intermediaries.
We should remember that before they used to ask people: which party are you going to vote for? Which party are you affiliated with? That was to buy votes. Not now. Now it's universal. You turn 65 and you get your universal pension for older adults. Nobody's support is conditioned the way it used to be.
Independence wasn't achieved until many years later, in 1821. It was an agreement between Vicente Guerrero and Iturbide, who came from the royalist army. Iturbide crowned himself emperor, and the independence fighters said, 'We don't want a king, we want a republic.' They overthrew him, and in 1824 the Republic of the United Mexican States was constituted. But don't think that the history of foreign interference in our country ended there.
Spain didn't recognize us as an independent country until 1836.
And that was the only thing that happened. The French set their sights on our territory. Then came the so-called Pastry War, when some French pastry cooks complained that they had been robbed and hadn't been paid. France took that as a pretext to try to invade Mexico.
After that came the invasion by the United States, which took more than half of our territory. After that came the Reform in our country, and Mexican conservatives went to look for an emperor in Europe. The French invaded again. They stayed five years in our territory, and the conservatives brought a foreign emperor to govern Mexico.
But then Benito Juárez and the liberals fought with the people for the second independence of Mexico, and it was achieved.
When Juárez arrived in Mexico City after that intervention, after the triumph of the restored republic, he said the phrase that Mexican men and women carry in their hearts: 'Among individuals as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace.'
The republic triumphed, and then the Porfiriato fell upon us. Many years of injustice, of one man who was reelected and reelected and reelected, in the end against the people of Mexico.
Then the Mexican Revolution came, and the United States took part in the coup d'état against Madero. The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Wilson, was the one who promoted the coup against Madero, his removal, and then his assassination along with Vice President Pino Suárez.
And in 1914, the United States tried to invade. Yes. Again. Carranza and the revolutionaries said, 'No, we Mexicans have to solve our own problems.'
That is why here in Sinaloa, it is fitting to always say: interference does not solve problems. Interference causes violence. What does Mexico ask for? Sovereignty and cooperation for development, which is what generates peace.
We don't want interference from any foreign government in our territory. We Mexicans define our future. And Sinaloa is decided by Sinaloans. The present and future of Sinaloa belong to Sinaloans, to the people of Mexico. It is very important to say it, and I repeat it: interference generates violence.
Cooperation for development generates peace. And what Sinaloa and the whole country need is peace with justice, freedom, and sovereignty.
There were also many years of interference under the neoliberal governments. 36 years of darkness for Mexico. We cannot forget Miguel de la Madrid, Salinas de Gortari, Zedillo, Fox, Calderón, Peña. Today, one who was finance secretary during Fobaproa writes that the country is doing very badly. What do you think? Badly with Fobaproa, a private debt turned into public debt that we are still paying to this day.
Here in Sinaloa, we built the new San Ignacio-Tamazula Highway.
We are repaving the entire federal highway network. We are building a vehicular bridge in Mazatlán, modernizing two irrigation districts, building 55,300 Bienestar homes, and regularizing 30,000 property deeds. Also underway are 103 road and traffic works. And now I'm going to move on to something important.
Also built or under construction: the new operating rooms at the children's hospital, the new regional general hospital in Culiacán of IMSS-Bienestar, the expansion of the psychiatric hospital in Culiacán, which we also inaugurated, the expansion of the family medicine clinic in Guasave of the ISSSTE, and a new general hospital in Guamúchil that is about to open.
We are going to build, if you agree, a little over 400 clinics for healthcare across Sinaloa.
They are completely free clinics, each with its own completely free pharmacy. We start next month, and they will begin opening in January 2027. More than 400 clinics across Sinaloa.
Now I want to tell you something very important. Graciela has the full support of the government of the republic. I agree with her first that all federal forces and everything that is needed will remain here always, for as long as necessary.
We are not going to withdraw a single member of the army, the National Guard, or the navy. They will remain in Sinaloa supporting the governor and, above all, the people of Sinaloa.
Second, starting next week, the cabinet will be coming here to Sinaloa. The security cabinet has already come. Next week comes the agriculture and rural development cabinet, coordinated by its secretary. Know that there will be no shortage of money to support farmers.
Afterwards, the energy cabinet will come with the Federal Electricity Commission, because I've already agreed with the governor that the subsidy for Sinaloa will be extended by one month. They will agree on the details with the energy secretary and the director of CFE, whatever is needed.
Then Pepe Merino will come with customs, because we have to solve the problem of shrimp coming in from other parts of the world. The best shrimp is Sinaloa's.
Before that, the Secretary of Public Education will come because of the insecurity and the violence it generates. Yes, there have to be better police. We have to keep the National Guard, and there must be zero impunity. All the things we already know. But we also have to look after young people. That's why we are going to build 20 more preparatory schools here in Sinaloa. Young people need to be in school.
And here are some young people from a program in Culiacán called Youth Unite the Neighborhood. There are already several hundred, but there will be 5,000 young people in this program to rescue them so they don't get close to criminal groups, so they do social, educational, cultural, and sports activities.
We are going to build 10 Mexico Imperable sports centers so young people can devote themselves to sports. The finance secretary will also come along with the undersecretary of expenditure to support Sinaloa with an extraordinary budget to serve the people of Sinaloa. And so every week we are going to be closely coordinated.
The people of Sinaloa are hardworking, brave, big-hearted. I know it because I have my heart in Sinaloa, as you already know.
Besides the fact that I love you all very much, it's because my husband is from Mazatlán, Sinaloa. We will always support all of Sinaloa. In hard times, we get through together, men and women together. Here the most important thing is the union between people and government. There can be no division between people and government. I put it this way: government and people united will never be defeated. Long live Sinaloa. Long live the dignified people of Sinaloa. Long live Mexico. Long live Mexico. Long live Mexico.
