Argentine President Javier Milei gestures while holding hands with former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro during the CPAC in Brazil on July 7, 2024. REUTERS/Anderson Coelho
When Argentine President Javier Milei had to choose between a far-right convention to bash his enemies and a presidential summit to discuss regional trade policy, he preferred a stadium full of cheering fans.
The Liberal leader was in Brazil on Sunday to chair the national version of CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) alongside former President Javier Bolsonaro in the Brazilian city of Balneario Camboriu.
By skipping the summit of the Mercosur trade bloc in Paraguay to side with Bolsonaro just days after federal police charged the right-wing populist in connection with a scheme to embezzle Saudi diamonds, Milei delivered another harsh rebuke to Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, further escalating a fraught feud with his country’s largest trading partner.
It was the latest example of Milei’s provocative foreign policy, which has seen him grab the world’s attention by befriending far-right allies rather than following diplomatic conventions.
Bolsonaro posted a video on Sunday in which he greeted Milei with a warm hug and a slap on the back before joining him and his sister and adviser, Karina Milei, and other aides. The two men stood next to their national flags for a photo-op that would have seemed presidential had Bolsonaro not been a disgraced ex-president under investigation by police for allegedly trying to undermine Brazil’s 2022 election results.
The night before, Bolsonaro opened Brazil’s CPAC on Saturday with a fiery speech in which he expressed his desire to see former US President Donald Trump back in the White House next year. He and Milei were spotted together later that night in a downtown hotel lobby, littered with empty wine glasses, as they watched Uruguay knock Brazil out of the 2024 Copa America.
Since the irascible Milei came to power last December on a promise to solve Argentina’s worst economic crisis in two decades, relations between the old allies and commodity giants have deteriorated rapidly. Milei has called Lula a “communist” and refused to do business with him. Lula has given Milei the cold shoulder and demanded an apology for what he called Milei’s “nonsense.”
The ideological foes first crossed paths at the G7 summit in Italy last month, where their attempts to avoid each other physically made local headlines.
Experts said if Milei had not joined the South American trade bloc’s meeting on Monday, he would have had a chance to ease tensions with Brazil, which accounts for nearly a sixth of Argentina’s exports, supplies most of its auto industry and has supported its neighbor’s requests for much-needed aid from the International Monetary Fund.
Instead, Milei has doubled down on his foreign policy gamble, which experts have criticized as misguided.
“He seems to be shooting himself in the foot,” Michael Shifter, a Latin America scholar at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said of Milei. “It’s shocking and counterproductive for him to thumb his nose at Lula in this way, because it could cost Argentina a lot of money, which could affect his ability to carry out his policies.”
The president’s ideologically driven strategy caused a political storm earlier this year in Spain, Argentina’s second-largest foreign investor. Milei refused to meet with the socialist government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and instead gave a speech criticizing socialism at a far-right rally organized by the country’s Vox party.
The rejection sparked a diplomatic crisis between the historic allies as Milei called Snchez’s wife corrupt and Spain withdrew its ambassador from Buenos Aires.
Despite five trips to the United States since taking office, Milei has yet to set foot in the White House. He hugged Trump at CPAC in Washington, befriended billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk in Texas over his love of the free market, and met with top tech CEOs in Silicon Valley.
“He wants to present himself as a rock star of international politics, which arouses admiration in some sectors of Argentina,” said Fabio Rodriguez, director of the Buenos Aires-based consultancy M&R Asociados. “But polls already indicate that this may be changing, that people see this as a burden, feel abandoned in the sense that their president is spending his time on tour while things are not improving on a daily basis.”
This time around with Brazil — Latin America’s largest economy with a population of some 200 million (20 crore) — experts say the stakes are even higher. Pressure is mounting in Argentina, where the local currency last week hit a record low of 1,430 pesos to the dollar on the black market where Argentines sell their depreciating pesos.
“Argentina has much more to lose than Brazil,” said Cristian Butti, director of pollster CB Consultora.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been edited by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First print: 08 Jul 2024 | 07:05 IST