Argentine President-elect Javier Milei keeps surprising his critics, having adopted a very pragmatic modus operandi in his first movements.
Milei seems to have left his campaign histrionics behind like old clothes, and while he remains unwavering in his most revolutionary promises – such as the dismantling of the Argentine Central Bank – he seems to have decided to do so without needlessly antagonizing foreign leaders.
A good example is Brazil.
Brazil is Argentina’s biggest trade partner. However, President Lula da Silva and his socialist party were all-in for Sergio Massa and the Peronists, with Lula even sending a team of election marketing and operations experts to help.
While during the campaign Milei had the toughest words to say about Lula, now he has started acting like a head of state putting his national interests ahead of ideological beefs.
So Javier Milei on Sunday invited Brazil’s leader Lula da Silva to his Dec. 10 inauguration while praising their countries’ ties.
Reuters reported:
“Milei said in a letter to Lula, which he reposted on social media X, that he wishes to keep sharing ‘complementary areas’ with the neighboring country so both can achieve ‘growth and prosperity’, citing their trade and global footprints.
The letter marks yet another shift from the radical libertarian, who during his campaign dubbed Lula an ‘angry communist’ and suggested he would balk at doing business with Brazil, Argentina’s top trade partner.
[…] ‘I hope that our mutual time as presidents will be a stage for fruitful work and the construction of ties that consolidate the role Argentina and Brazil can and must fulfill in the concert of nations’, Milei told Lula.”
Milei’s top foreign policy adviser, Diana Mondino, handed the letter to Brazil’s Foreign Relations Minister Mauro Vieira at a meeting in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia.
There is only one problem in all that: Milei is closer politically and personally to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and has invited him to his inauguration.
FM Vieira will brief Lula on Milei’s invitation.
“I have no doubts that our relationship, which is very important, will remain that way … Mondino showed us Argentina wants to continue having a high-level dialogue with Brazil.”
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