The expectation for the official meeting between two presidents from neighboring countries and ideological opposites, such as the Argentine Javier Milei and the Brazilian Luiz Inácio Lula, was maximum this Monday: the libertarian economist has already been in power for ten months, and both have only They had briefly greeted each other at the G-7 in June in Italy. The South American leaders have had an icy greeting with Lula as host, along with his wife, Janja, and Milei as a guest at the G-20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, accompanied by his sister Karina, his closest collaborator in the Government. Milei announced at the end of the afternoon that he will support the final declaration of the G-20 leaders this Tuesday, but he has detailed his many disagreements in a note. Or, in his words, support for the conclusions “partially dissociating from all content linked to the 2030 agenda,” in reference to the development goals agreed upon by the world at the UN.
The tension between Milei and Lula has been one of the highlights of a day in which the leaders of the largest economies in the world have met in Rio to debate, at the proposal of the Brazilian Government, on structural problems that it considers relevant and that almost They are always overshadowed by crises and conflicts. Hunger, poverty, multilateral institutions whose composition does not reflect the current balances of power – much more equal between the West and emerging countries -, climate change and the energy transition are the issues that Lula has placed on the table.
The speeches of the Brazilian president, the only ones broadcast from sessions that were held behind closed doors, and the note issued by the Argentine head of government make clear the abyss that separates the two leaders.
“Hunger and poverty are not the result of scarcity or natural phenomena,” Lula stressed after recalling that the world produces 6 billion tons of food per year. “It is the product of political decisions that perpetuate the exclusion of a large part of humanity.” And the global pact that he champions is the instrument for governments to accelerate their measures to end this scourge in 2030. Milei, on the other hand, has defended his recipe, which is the opposite of that proposed by the Brazilian: “If we want to combat the hunger and poverty, the solution is to run [quitar] to the middle state [sic]” and deregulate the economy so that the market creates prosperity.
The worst fears about the Argentine president’s participation in the summit pointed early in the morning to an Argentine boycott of Lula’s great bet, the launch of the Alliance against Hunger and Poverty. Both Milei’s ideology and the recent messages from his Government, which last week abandoned the COP29 Climate Conference in Baku, anticipated a clash with the rest of the members of the G-20, a forum that is governed by the principle of consensus. The ultra president’s reluctance was not a secret to anyone and, for a few hours, Argentina withdrew from the initiative to eradicate hunger.
However, in the afternoon the president’s office released a statement in which it assured that Argentina would subscribe to the presidents’ declaration, although it listed its discrepancies, but without slamming the door. “Without hindering the declaration of the other leaders, President Javier Milei has made it clear that he does not support several points,” the note states. Among these discordant positions are “the promotion of the limitation of freedom of expression on social networks, the scheme of imposition and violation of the sovereignty of global governance institutions, unequal treatment before the law and, especially, the notion that Greater state intervention is the way to fight hunger.”
Milei, who won the elections exactly one year ago, on November 19, 2023, campaigned precisely by presenting himself as an “anarcho-capitalist” brandishing a chainsaw as a symbol of public spending cuts and the destruction of state regulations. Today, after 11 months of profound adjustments, he leads a Government that, in substance and form, plays against him in all international forums and will be Donald Trump’s main ally in Latin America. His participation in the Conservative Action Political Conference last week in Mar-a-Lago, alongside Donald Trump and the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, projected him in some way in this G-20 as a messenger of the next Administration US.
