The Mexican ambassador to the U.S. will attend a Cinco de Mayo celebration Friday at the White House complex.
The morning event will highlight the pending U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade deal, as well as commemorate the holiday.
“Ambassador Martha Bárcena has been invited to attend the ‘USMCA Briefing and Cinco de Mayo Celebration’ that will take place in the White House at 10.30 [a.m.],” Mexican embassy spokesman Victor Arriaga told the Washington Examiner
Bárcena “is scheduled to offer some remarks,” Arriaga said.
The White House did not publicly advertise the event, or provide a public list of expected guests.
President Trump, who is scheduled to meet with Slovakia’s prime minister on Friday, is not expected to attend.
Trump has given far less fanfare to Cinco de Mayo than his recent predecessors. Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, by contrast, hosted elaborate parties in the Rose Garden and East Room of the White House.
In 2017, Vice President Mike Pence hosted a celebration in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The same venue, a stone’s throw from the West Wing, will host the Friday event.
In both 2017 and 2018, Trump issued statements noting the date. “Today, we honor the heritage of our neighbors to the south, and we celebrate the significant contributions of Mexican Americans to the United States,” he said last year.
Cinco de Mayo marks Mexico’s 1862 victory over invading French Emperor Napoleon III in the Battle of Puebla. Though victorious, the French later imposed Maximilian I, an Austrian royal who ruled Mexico as emperor from 1864-1867 before being overthrown and executed at age 34.
