12:54 am - February 5, 2026
The Trump administration has drawn sharp criticism from historians and scholars after issuing a White House statement commemorating the Mexican-American War that critics say distorts historical facts to justify current foreign policy decisions. The unsigned Monday statement described the 19th-century conflict as a “legendary victory” while drawing parallels to the administration’s increasingly aggressive stance toward Latin America, sparking accusations of attempting to rewrite American history.
The White House statement, released to mark the 178th anniversary of the war, made no mention of slavery’s role in the conflict and glorified the Manifest Destiny period without acknowledging the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Native Americans. According to the statement, the war “secured the American Southwest, reasserted American sovereignty, and expanded the promise of American independence across our majestic continent.”
Historians Challenge Mexican-American War Narrative
Alexander Aviña, a Latin American history professor at Arizona State University, said the White House statement “underplays the massive amounts of violence that it took to expand” the United States to the Pacific shore. The remarks come as the Trump administration has intensified its involvement in Latin American affairs to levels not seen in decades, including deposing Venezuela’s president, meddling in regional elections, and threatening military action in Mexico.
Aviña noted that U.S. political leaders have historically viewed the Mexican-American War as “an ugly aspect of U.S. history” and “a pretty clear instance of U.S. imperialism against its southern neighbor.” In contrast, the Trump administration is embracing the conflict as a positive historical moment while inaccurately framing it as a defensive measure.
Mexican President Responds to Historical Revisionism
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded to the statement during her Tuesday morning news briefing with laughter and sarcasm, noting the importance of defending sovereignty. Sheinbaum has maintained a balanced approach to dealing with the Trump administration, occasionally responding with humor, as she did when Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
The Mexican-American War, which lasted from 1846 to 1848, was triggered by border disputes and the United States’ annexation of Texas in 1845. Mexico had banned slavery, and U.S. abolitionists feared the land grab was partly an attempt to add slave states to the Union.
After successive U.S. victories, Mexico ceded more than 525,000 square miles of territory to the United States, including what now comprises Arizona, California, western Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah. Former President Ulysses S. Grant later described the conflict as “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.”
Part of Broader Effort to Reshape Historical Narrative
Albert Camarillo, a history professor at Stanford University, described the White House statement as a “distorted, ahistorical, imperialist version” of the Mexican-American War. Additionally, he said the statement aligns with wider actions taken by the Trump administration to reshape federal government language around its own ideology.
According to Aviña, the statement serves “to assert rhetorically that the U.S. is justified in establishing its so-called ‘America First’ policy throughout the Americas,” regardless of historical accuracy. The commemoration falls in line with other administration efforts to revise how American history is presented and taught.
The Trump administration has ordered the rewriting of history on display at the Smithsonian Institution, claiming it is “restoring truth and sanity to American history.” Meanwhile, the administration has scrubbed government websites of content it finds disagreeable, including references to slavery, the destruction of Native American cultures, and climate change.
The war continues to be a historical sticking point between the United States and Mexico, particularly as Sheinbaum repeatedly reminds Trump that Mexico is a sovereign nation whenever the administration weighs taking military action against Mexican cartels or pressures Mexico to comply with U.S. demands. However, authorities have not indicated whether diplomatic tensions will escalate further over the administration’s historical interpretation of the conflict.
