Did Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum propose annexing Guatemala so it would become the "33rd state" in Mexico? No, that's not true: The rumor about Mexico annexing Guatemala was first debunked before she was president. Lead Stories found no actual news reports that confirmed the purported "annexation" plan under the new administration in Mexico.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Instagram on December 18, 2024. The headline on top of the composite image incorporating a photo of Sheinbaum began:
Mexico proposes to Guatemala to annex the
country as the 33rd state!🇲🇽🇬🇹
The picture's description paraphrased the claim:
Thoughts⁉️ Mexico's President has offered Guatemala to join their country and become the country's 33rd state 😳
This is what the post looked like on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Thu Dec 19 13:47:20 2024 UTC)
The rumor had been circulating online for at least eight months before resurfacing in the post reviewed in this fact check. In May 2024, Mexico-based outlet Animal Politico (archived here) published an article (archived here) refuting a variation of the claim that used images showing the presidents of the two countries during their joint press conference that month (archived here).
At the time, Mexico's president was Andrés Manuel López Obrador who left office on September 30, 2024: In Mexico, presidents can only serve one term under a 1933 amendment (archived here; a Spanish-language PDF file with the original text is here) reflected in Article 83 of the national Constitution (archived here).
Searches on Google News for English keywords seen here (archived here) across news reports between May 2024 and Obrador's last day in office produced no results corroborating the claim.
A similar search for the same period for Spanish keywords seen here (archived here) showed Spanish-language fact checks by Animal Politico (archived here) and Efeverifica (archived here) that debunked another variation of the claim speculating about Cuba becoming the 33rd Mexican state through annexation.
The December 2024 variation of the claim reviewed in this fact check reused a photo of the new Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office on October 1, 2024 (archived here).
A Google search across the website of the Mexican government for the keywords seen here (archived here) across the materials published during her presidency didn't show any announcements confirming the claim.
The official account of Mexico's government on Instagram (archived here) searched for the keywords seen here (archived here) via Google for the period of Sheinbaum's presidency did not show any posts or reels about the purported annexation announcement.
As a Google reverse image (archived here) revealed, the same image of Sheinbaum was used in a Radio France Internationale article (archived here) about a November 2024 call between Sheinbaum and President-elect Donald Trump. It said nothing about the annexation of Guatemala or any other country and did not discuss the idea of the 33rd state.
When Lead Stories performed a keyword search on Google News seen here (archived here) for the period between May 2024 and this writing, it showed zero results.
A Google search for the keywords seen here (archived here) across the Diario Oficial de la Federación newspaper, which is where Mexico's government publishes its announcements, produced a single result (archived here) that still said nothing about the purported annexation.
According to a 2024 Fresno Bee article (archived here), the concept of a 33rd Mexican state in popular culture is not about physically annexing other countries. What the piece described is a movement for greater representation of Mexican citizens living in the United States or elsewhere abroad in elected offices in Mexico.
Lead Stories reached out for additional comment to Mexico's Consulate in New York. If we receive a response, this story will be updated as appropriate.
Lead Stories previously debunked other baseless claims about annexation rumors. Those articles can be found here, here and here.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims about Mexico are here.
