Argentinian president doubles down on Trump assist, attends Mar-a-Lago occasion because the world reacts to tariffs

Europe vowed retaliation. China plotted tariffs of its personal. Mexico scrambled to blunt the blow. However whereas the world’s leaders had been wringing their palms over President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs on U.S. imports, Argentina’s right-wing president was ebullient, feted at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago membership.

As a part of his enthusiastic outreach to Mr. Trump, Argentine President Javier Milei flew from one of many planet’s southernmost nations all the way in which to Palm Seaside for twenty-four hours to obtain an award honoring his libertarian agenda and, he’d hoped, to chat with Mr. Trump, who was additionally scheduled to attend the right-wing “American Patriot” gala.

“Make Argentina Nice Once more!” Milei bellowed from the ballroom stage at at Mar-a-Lago late Thursday.

It will have been the fourth face-to-face assembly between the leaders since Mr. Trump’s election victory final November as President Milei, who has imposed a sweeping austerity program to repair Argentina’s lengthy troubled economic system, gives himself as considered one of Mr. Trump’s strongest allies within the international tradition conflict in opposition to the “woke” left.

Whether or not Milei’s staunch alliance with Mr. Trump can really assist crisis-stricken Argentina stays to be seen, analysts say.

“He has a particular relationship with Trump that has been good for him politically, however he must translate that into being good for the nation economically,” stated Marcelo J. García, director for the Americas at New York-based geopolitical threat consultancy Horizon Have interaction. “He hasn’t managed to do this but.”

Earlier this yr, Milei pulled Argentina out of the World Well being Group after the U.S. introduced its personal exit.

He threatened to give up the Paris local weather accord after Mr. Trump did. He outlawed gender change therapies for minors after Mr. Trump banned transgender athletes from taking part in girls’s sports activities. He even promoted a cryptocurrency token echoing the $Trump memecoin — at nice political price. In Milei’s case, the cryptocoin Libra collapsed and left buyers holding the bag, to the tune of $250 million. He later admitted that he posted concerning the coin with out correctly vetting the small print. 

Milei has additionally slashed authorities spending, equally to what Mr. Trump and Elon Musk have completed with the Division of Authorities Effectivity. He has diminished authorities spending in Argentina by over 30% since taking workplace in 2023 by eliminating a couple of dozen authorities businesses, shedding 10% of the federal workforce and freezing state wages and pensions. Whereas the cuts have lowered the nation’s hyperinflation, they’ve pushed up unemployment and poverty charges. Weekly protests have been held criticizing the cuts.  

The cuts had been one thing Milei promised whereas operating for workplace, even wielding a chainsaw throughout his marketing campaign. He then gifted Musk a large chainsaw modeled after the ability device. Musk waved the chainsaw throughout remarks on the Conservative Political Motion Convention. 

Railing in opposition to socialism and feminism at talking occasions all around the world — together with at CPAC — Milei has customary himself into one thing of a MAGA celeb.

Argentinian authorities reacts to Trump tariffs

Whereas U.S. companions and rivals alike had been criticizing Mr. Trump’s tariffs, a tux-clad Milei was holding forth beside a portray of Mr. Trump’s pumped fist, reveling within the alternative to show himself a dogged champion of the American president.

“As you’ll be able to see, we conduct coverage with actions, not mere phrases, and on that we agree with President Donald Trump,” Milei instructed the group at Mar-a-Lago, drawing cheers on the point out of the American president’s identify as he spoke in Spanish.

In Buenos Aires, Milei’s authorities sought to reconcile Mr. Trump’s main spherical of tariffs with its personal radical libertarian ideology and fervent assist free of charge commerce.

“We don’t consider that is an assault on free commerce, fairly the alternative,” Milei’s spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, stated of Mr. Trump’s announcement. “I do not see why there ought to be a lot concern about this.”

For all of the leaders’ mutual flattery, Argentina was slapped with a ten% minimal tariff. However officers framed it as uniquely preferential therapy. The entrance web page of Argentina’s largest-circulation each day, Clarín, declared: “Trump raises the tax on our merchandise lower than on different international locations.”

In Washington, Argentine International Minister Gerardo Werthein on Thursday held what he described as “extremely productive” conferences with high U.S. commerce negotiator Jamieson Greer and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, releasing rosy statements promising that Argentina was on its approach to negotiating a free-trade settlement with the U.S.

Milei praised progress towards the free deal in his Mar-a-Lago speech. However way more essential to the Argentine chief is a hoped-for $20 billion bailout with the Worldwide Financial Fund. The badly wanted money would assist Milei hold his bold financial reforms on observe as strain mounts on the nation’s sparse overseas forex reserves.

Milei has already used government powers to take away the necessity for Congress to approve a brand new IMF program. However the mortgage hasn’t cleared the end line, with negotiators nonetheless haggling over how a lot money Argentina, a serial defaulter that owes some $44 billion to the fund, will likely be allowed to entry up-front.

It was in opposition to this backdrop on Wednesday that Milei, accompanied by his economic system minister, hopped on the aircraft to the U.S., the fund’s greatest stakeholder. He instructed journalists he anticipated “an off-the-cuff assembly” with Mr. Trump, who was instrumental throughout his first time period in serving to Argentina safe a significant $56 billion mortgage from the fund in 2018.

However on Friday, Milei’s much-anticipated photo-op with Mr. Trump was nowhere to be present in his publicist’s slick montage of the Argentine president snapping selfies with followers on Mar-a-Lago’s purple carpet.

The president’s workplace stated nothing about his assembly — or, non-meeting — with Mr. Trump, and didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.

Mr. Trump arrived at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Seaside very late Thursday night after attending an occasion with skilled golfers at considered one of his golf programs close to Miami. The White Home did not say whether or not he and Milei met.

Main Argentine newspapers cited nameless officers saying the leaders by no means met, drawing instantaneous scorn from his political enemies.

“Once I wakened, I believed I might discover on TV the photo-op together with your ‘buddy’ Trump that you just went on the lookout for,” left-wing former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner wrote on social media. “What a approach to fiddle and spend cash on nothing.”