President Javier Milei of Argentina hosted U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in Buenos Aires on Friday morning to debate the assorted methods Mr. Milei is reshaping Argentina international coverage in keeping with the USA.
A number of hours later, each males have been set to board separate planes for Washington. Mr. Blinken was going again to the White Home and President Biden. Mr. Milei was headed to the Conservative Political Motion Convention, or CPAC, the place he would take the stage forward of former President Donald J. Trump and provides a speech that may nearly actually rail in opposition to the hazards of the left.
Mr. Milei’s hectic itinerary — touring south to north, left to proper — reveals how the brand new Argentine president is making an attempt to navigate the politically turbulent waters of the USA in an election 12 months, figuring out that the following administration may very well be essential to his personal success.
Along with being Argentina’s largest international investor and its third-largest commerce associate, the USA has essentially the most management of any nation over the Worldwide Financial Fund, to which Argentina owes $40 billion.
Argentina is basically broke — Mr. Milei’s new slogan is “There’s no money” — and his plan to tug Argentina out of its financial crisis might hinge on getting more cash from the I.M.F. and extra time to pay it again.
He’s already dashing forward along with his financial plans as Argentina’s annual inflation exceeds 250 percent, the very best on the planet by some measures, and protests and strikes mount. If he can stabilize Argentina’s financial system, a feat no Argentine president has achieved in a long time, he has mentioned he desires to ditch Argentina’s currency for the U.S. dollar.
So Mr. Milei, a former fiery tv pundit who backed Mr. Trump’s 2020 claims of election fraud, has performed good with the Biden administration since taking workplace in December.
He has criticized China and Russia, aligned intently with the USA and Israel, and pulled Argentina out of its deliberate entry into BRICS, the alliance of growing nations designed to counter U.S. energy.
In the beginning of the assembly with Mr. Blinken on Friday, Mr. Milei advised reporters, “Argentina has decided to return to the side of the West, to the side of progress, to democracy and, above all, freedom.”
After the assembly, when requested what he considered Mr. Milei’s journey plans, Mr. Blinken mentioned, “That’s entirely up to him.” He added that he “could not be more pleased, on behalf of President Biden, with the meeting we just had.”
The USA has a lot to achieve in Argentina, specifically the nation’s huge reserves of strategic minerals, together with lithium, which is a significant part in batteries for electrical automobiles. It was a subject of the talks between Mr. Milei and Mr. Blinken on Friday.
However the friendship Mr. Milei is aiming to forge with Mr. Biden is considerably difficult by his separate bid to spice up his world picture as a warrior against the modern left, which he says is poisoning the West with socialism and social justice activism.
His speech slamming socialism and feminism this 12 months on the World Financial Discussion board in Davos, Switzerland, went viral after the billionaire Elon Musk shared it with hundreds of thousands of followers.
Mr. Milei opposes “social justice” as a result of it goals “to help someone by taking away from someone else,” Diana Mondino, Argentina’s international minister, mentioned at a information convention with Mr. Blinken on Friday. She mentioned that even when Mr. Milei and Mr. Biden don’t agree on every thing, they will nonetheless get alongside. “We live in a very complicated world,” she mentioned.
Mr. Trump has been a giant fan, repeatedly cheering on Mr. Milei to “make Argentina great again” in on-line posts. However the two haven’t but met in individual.
That would change on Saturday, after they would be the two headline audio system on the closing day of CPAC, which has grow to be a type of Trump competition in recent times. (Different audio system this 12 months embrace the pundit Steve Bannon, the pillow government Mike Lindell and the hard-right congressmen Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz.)
Mr. Milei is more likely to be embraced as a right-wing movie star on the occasion. His star energy amongst conservatives was already on show this week when Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida visited Buenos Aires. Mr. Milei gave Mr. Rubio a espresso mug with “There’s no money” written on it, and the senator requested him to autograph it.
Mr. Rubio then handed an aide the mug. “Don’t smear this,” he mentioned.
Lucía Cholakian Herrera and Edward Wong contributed reporting from Buenos Aires.
