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President Javier Milei of Argentina hosted U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in Buenos Aires on Friday morning to debate the varied methods Mr. Milei is reshaping Argentina international coverage in keeping with the US.
A number of hours later, each males had 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 definitely rail towards the risks of the left.
Mr. Milei’s hectic itinerary — touring south to north, left to proper — reveals how the brand new Argentine president is attempting to navigate the politically turbulent waters of the US in an election yr, 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 accomplice, the US has essentially the most management of any nation over the Worldwide Financial Fund, to which Argentina owes $40 billion.
Argentina is essentially broke — Mr. Milei’s new slogan is “There’s no cash” — and his plan to drag Argentina out of its monetary disaster might hinge on getting more cash from the I.M.F. and extra time to pay it again.
He’s already dashing forward together with his financial plans as Argentina’s annual inflation exceeds 250 %, the best on the earth by some measures, and protests and strikes mount. If he can stabilize Argentina’s economic system, a feat no Argentine president has completed in a long time, he has stated he desires to ditch Argentina’s foreign money for the U.S. greenback.
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 US and Israel, and pulled Argentina out of its deliberate entry into BRICS, the alliance of growing nations designed to counter U.S. energy.
At the beginning of the assembly with Mr. Blinken on Friday, Mr. Milei informed reporters, “Argentina has determined to return to the aspect of the West, to the aspect of progress, to democracy and, above all, freedom.”
After the assembly, when requested what he considered Mr. Milei’s journey plans, Mr. Blinken stated, “That’s totally as much as him.” He added that he “couldn’t be extra happy, on behalf of President Biden, with the assembly we simply had.”
America has loads to realize in Argentina, particularly the nation’s huge reserves of strategic minerals, together with lithium, which is a serious 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 sophisticated by his separate bid to spice up his international picture as a warrior towards the trendy left, which he says is poisoning the West with socialism and social justice activism.
His speech slamming socialism and feminism this yr on the World Financial Discussion board in Davos, Switzerland, went viral after the billionaire Elon Musk shared it with tens of millions of followers.
Mr. Milei opposes “social justice” as a result of it goals “to assist somebody by taking away from another person,” Diana Mondino, Argentina’s international minister, stated at a information convention with Mr. Blinken on Friday. She stated that even when Mr. Milei and Mr. Biden don’t agree on the whole lot, they will nonetheless get alongside. “We reside in a really sophisticated world,” she stated.
Mr. Trump has been a giant fan, repeatedly cheering on Mr. Milei to “make Argentina nice once more” in on-line posts. However the two haven’t but met in individual.
That might change on Saturday, after they would be the two headline audio system on the closing day of CPAC, which has develop into a form of Trump competition in recent times. (Different audio system this yr embrace the pundit Steve Bannon, the pillow government Mike Lindell and the hard-right congressmen Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz.)
Mr. Milei is prone to be embraced as a right-wing celeb 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 cash” written on it, and the senator requested him to autograph it.
Mr. Rubio then handed an aide the mug. “Don’t smear this,” he stated.
Lucía Cholakian Herrera and Edward Wong contributed reporting from Buenos Aires.
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