Javier Milei has traveled abroad more than any other Argentine president at the beginning of his term: nine trips in just over six months. In total, he has spent 38 days away, which averages out to one in every five days of his management. These international tours have broken with the tradition of starting with Brazil, Argentina’s major trading partner, and have also ignored the other neighboring countries, focusing almost exclusively on the United States and Europe. The last trip took him through Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic and concluded this Tuesday surrounded by criticism for spending and with an unexpected scandal: the management of the Liberal Institute of Prague has just denied having granted him any distinction. According to its director, Martín Pánek, the award that the Argentine president received was awarded by a dissident group and not by the institute’s authorities.
“It is premature to award this award to Milei,” Pánek, who has distanced himself from the Argentine president due to his conservative agenda, told EFE. “We are against his measures against drugs, abortion and public demonstrations; “We are in favor of the legalization of marijuana and abortion,” he said. Pánek anticipated that he is considering denouncing the founder of the Institute, Jiri Schwarz, for having organized an event in the name of the institution when he is no longer part of it. On its website, the institution clarifies that this year’s annual award was already awarded to urban planner Alain Bertaud.
The president had already received another controversial distinction during the trip, the medal from the Hayek Society in Hamburg. Although this organization defines itself as liberal and a continuator of the thought of the famous Austrian economist, it has prominent members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
“They will probably give me the Nobel Prize”
The Argentine Presidency broadcast Milei’s full speech upon receiving the supposed award from the Liberal Institute of Prague. From the lectern prepared for the occasion, the president once again ranted against socialism and against the State, as he had done days before in Madrid, when he was awarded the medal of the community of Madrid by its president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. . He enthusiastically sold the ultra-liberal economic model with which he aspires to make Argentina the “freest country in the world” and, in the long term, also the richest, and he allowed himself to dream big out loud: “If it ends up going well, they will probably give me the Nobel Prize in Economics along with Demián [Reidel, su jefe de asesores]”.
Shortly after saying those words, uninspiring economic data arrived from Argentina: the economy contracted 5.1% year-on-year in the first quarter of the year amid a general decline in consumption, industrial production and investment. Unemployment rose two points in the first three months of the year, to 7.7%, a figure that has worsened since then.
Milei’s travels have been varied. Some have been state trips, such as the one that took him to Israel, Italy and the Vatican in February, but others have not. For example, he has visited the United States four times without being received on any of them by President Joe Biden or his ministers. For the first time he traveled to Washington to participate in a conservative summit in which he greeted former President Donald Trump. The second, he was honored as an ambassador of light in Miami by the Orthodox Jewish congregation Chabad Lubavitch and then met with businessman Elon Musk at his Tesla factory. The third time, in Los Angeles, he combined business meetings with public exhibitions and the fourth, in San Francisco, he visited the large companies of Silicon Valley to sell Argentina as a regional hub for technology and artificial intelligence.
In Europe, he started with his participation in Davos in December and days ago he was in Italy to attend the G7 as a guest. Other of his trips have been planned as private visits, such as his first stay in Madrid last month, when he participated in a rally of the ultra Vox party and took advantage of that loudspeaker to attack the president of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, and his wife, Begoña. Gomez. These statements reopened a diplomatic crisis that had begun before and still continues: Spain keeps its embassy in Buenos Aires beheaded.
The president’s numerous trips clash with the official message that “there is no money” and that it is necessary to cut public spending everywhere, especially politics. His first five trips abroad cost the public coffers of Argentina $218,000, according to data provided by the Government to Chequeado. It remains to be known the cost of the last four, much more expensive given that Milei stopped traveling on commercial flights in April and began traveling on the presidential plane for security reasons.
Following a complaint to Justice, Milei is investigated for alleged embezzlement of funds in trips for private purposes. The entourage that accompanies him varies each time, except for the constant presence of his sister and secretary of the Presidency, Karina Milei.
“He travels to show that in Argentina we want to be a normal country,” Reidel defended him this Tuesday. “People should thank him and not complain that he is going to receive an award, but think about why he does this. Because all these things put Argentina back on the map of normal countries. It is like a CEO who is going to make the marketing presentation to show his products,” continued his chief advisor.
The prosperous future of Argentina that Milei sells abroad contrasts with a difficult present. One in two inhabitants are poor, year-on-year inflation is 276.4% and the economy, which has not grown for more than twelve years, still has not hit rock bottom and will contract more than 3% this year, according to international organizations.
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