“Long live freedom, damn it.” With this phrase, the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, has posted on his social networks a photograph of himself along with the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, both in suits, and smiling, after having met informally this Thursday at Mar-a-Lago, the Republican leader’s Florida residence. Milei is the first foreign leader to meet face to face with the former and future president after Trump won the elections on November 5, in a meeting in which businessman Elon Musk also participated.
In the photograph, a Trump dressed in a tuxedo smiles with a thumbs up next to Milei, who shows the gesture a little more seriously. In the first conversation between the two after the Republican’s victory, the president-elect described the Argentine as “my favorite president,” as Milei himself declared this Wednesday.
President Javier Milei with President-elect Donald Trump and businessman Elon Musk.
The Secretary General of the Presidency, Karina Milei, and the Chancellor, Gerardo Werthein, also participated in the meeting. pic.twitter.com/ZsSX6xQtyc
— Office of the President (@OPRArgentina) November 15, 2024
The Argentine president’s office also confirmed on social networks the meeting at Mar-a-Lago between the two leaders and Musk. Also attending on the Argentine side were the Secretary General of the Presidency, Karina Milei, and the country’s Foreign Minister, Gerardo Werthein, who recently took office after his time as ambassador in Washington.
After the meeting, Milei gave a speech at the gala dinner of the America First Policy Institute in Mar-a-Lago. In his speech, the Argentine head of state attacked left-wing ideologies and paid tribute to Musk, by ensuring that , the social network owned by the richest man in the world, is helping to “save humanity.”
He also praised his host, whose “resounding victory” he claims was “the greatest political comeback in history, challenging the entire political establishment and even putting his own life at risk.”
In his speech, the Argentine president, who describes himself as “anarcho-capitalist,” listed what he considers the achievements of his year in power. “One by one we have been solving problems that had been swept under the rug in Argentina for decades. Even problems that the free world has little courage to tackle, such as the fiscal deficit. Only five countries in the world are on the line of financial balance: Argentina is one. By this I mean that Argentina can and must be a lighthouse for the world, a lighthouse of lighthouses, even now that the winds of freedom also blow in the north, because the world had fallen into deep darkness and begs to be illuminated.”
The American president-elect returned the praise in his own speech. “Javier, I want to congratulate you for the work you have done, for making Argentina great again. It is incredible how you are fixing it and it is an honor that you are here,” he said.
Before the event at Mar-a-Lago, Milei, who arrived in Florida this Thursday, had held private meetings with American businessmen in Miami.
The Argentine president had declared as his main objective for this trip to try to build bridges with the incoming US Government, which he considers a strategic ally for the coming years, and to do his part to achieve better terms in the relationship between Buenos Aires and the International Monetary Fund. Milei also aspires to negotiate a free trade agreement with the new US leadership team.
Argentina is the main debtor of the Fund, to which it owes 44 billion dollars. But the Milei Government aspires to renegotiate the relationship and obtain new loans for nearly another 15,000 million that will allow it to relax the currency and capital controls that hinder the country’s exit from its recession.
