The United States and Mexico celebrated 200 years of diplomatic relations on March 8 at the National Museum of American Diplomacy in Washington, DC.
Judy de Torok, the USPS corporate affairs vice president, accepted a special letter of solidarity written by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to be delivered by mail to Marcelo Luis Ebrard, Mexico’s minister of interior and exterior relations.
De Torok was joined at the museum — located within the State Department — by Christopher Dodd, special presidential adviser for the Americas and former U.S. senator, and Esteban Moctezuma, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States.
“Like our countries, the United States Postal Service and Correos de Mexico have our own fruitful working relationship,” de Torok said. “Our postal history together goes back a long way.”
She recounted several milestones along that journey, from a parcel post pact in the 1800s that allowed for merchandise to flow between El Paso, TX, and the settlement now known as Ciudad Juarez, up to recent U.S. postage stamps honoring Mexican culture, such as Mariachi, Day of the Dead and more.
De Torok also explained how the USPS International Postal Affairs team is working “hand in hand” with its counterpart in Mexico as part of the Delivering for America plan.
A special postmark was created for the occasion with artwork commissioned by the Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Relations.
“What better way to demonstrate our countries’ collaboration and to memorialize this historic event than with a pictorial cancellation?” de Torok said.
She then invited Dodd and Moctezuma to hand-cancel a large replica of the envelope of the letter from Blinken to Ebrard.
Information about obtaining the pictorial postmark is available on usps.com.