Marines from Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic, Marine Forces Command, and Marine Forces Northern Command will commence training alongside Mexican armed forces during exercise FENIX 2025 on Isla Santa Margarita, Baja California Sur, Mexico, from March 23 to April 25, 2025. FENIX 2025, formerly named Aztec Alligator, is the second evolution of this biennial, bilateral amphibious exercise between U.S. Northern Command’s Marine Component Command, Marine Forces Northern Command and the Mexican Secretariat of the Navy. The purpose of this long-planned exercise is to demonstrate compatibility in amphibious operations and practice collective maritime capabilities while strengthening the military-to-military relationship between the U.S. and Mexico.

In this second iteration of FENIX, approximately 145 U.S. Marines and 838 Mexican Marina will improve operational compatibility and fortify their established military-to-military relationship. “FENIX 25 provides a great opportunity to further our mutual objective of enhancing amphibious operational capabilities with our Mexican Navy and Marine partners,” said Lt. Col. Landry Guillory, theater security cooperation branch head, Marine Forces Northern Command. “This year, we expanded the scale and scope of integration by embarking Marines from I Marine Expeditionary Force on the Mexican Navy Amphibious Vessel Armada Isla Tiburon, as they move toward the training area on the Baja peninsula.” FENIX 25 expands and strengthens the bilateral partnership between the U.S. Marine Corps and the Mexican Navy and Marines established with the signing of the Cross-Border Training and Capacity-Building Cooperation Agreement in 2008.