In June, Argentine President Javier Milei described himself as “the mole that destroys the State from within.” This Monday, his speech at the United Nations with attacks against this and other international organizations also represents the breaking of the Argentine State’s bridges to the outside, with the world community. The words of the far-right leader are accompanied by actions: he has refused to sign the Pact for the Future that sets the roadmap to face growing challenges such as sustainable development, climate change and digital cooperation, among others.
The Pact for the Future was approved by 143 countries, including the United States and Israel, Milei’s two beacons in foreign policy. Argentina refused to participate in the vote and its rejection aligned it with Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Haiti, Equatorial Guinea, Somalia and Uzbekistan.
In his address to the 49th UN General Assembly, Milei praised the organization’s initial goal of pursuing world peace but warned that it has mutated into a “multi-tentacled leviathan” that imposes a socialist agenda on its members. “It has been replaced by a model of supranational government of international bureaucrats who seek to impose a certain way of life on the citizens of the world. What is being discussed this week here in New York at the summit of the future is nothing other than the deepening of this tragic course that this institution has adopted,” he stressed.
Without losing his virulent tone, the far-right president argued why he is turning his back on the sustainable development agenda embodied by both the Future Pact and the 2030 Agenda. He believes that they propose to resolve “the problems of modernity with solutions that undermine the sovereignty of nation-states and violate people’s right to life, liberty and property.”
Climate change, one of the greatest threats to the planet, was absent from Milei’s message. Despite the evidence provided by scientists on global warming, Milei has described it as “another lie of socialism” and opposes any mitigation policy if it represents an obstacle to economic growth.
The position taken by the far-right leader at the UN isolates Argentina even more. Since Milei assumed the presidency nine months ago, Argentine diplomacy has suffered short circuits with the leaders of Spain, China, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Chile. Only a victory for Donald Trump in the US presidential elections would give Milei a strong partner that he currently lacks.
In nine months as president, he has traveled to the United States, his favorite destination, six times. On none of them has he been received by the American president, Joseph Biden, or by any senior official of his government. His agenda has focused on conferences in conservative political and economic circles and meetings with businessmen such as the technological magnate Elon Musk.
The political clashes are compounded by an inherited problem on the economic front: Argentina’s lack of integration into the international financial system due to its long history of defaulting on payments. The Latin American country has no access to credit in external markets and depends on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and multilateral organizations such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank to obtain fresh funds. In 2018, Argentina received a $44 billion bailout from the IMF that it is still repaying, but the Argentine government is in negotiations to close a new agreement.
However, the leader did not spare criticism of the global economic architecture: “A toxic relationship has been promoted between global governance policies and international credit organizations, requiring the most neglected countries to commit resources they do not have to programs they do not need, turning them into perpetual debtors to promote the agenda of the global elites.”
His criticism was even more direct against the World Economic Forum, better known as the Davos Forum, which he considered to promote “ridiculous policies with Malthusian blinkers.” He gave as an example one of the programs to combat climate change, “zero emission” policies that, in his opinion, “harm poor countries above all.”
Milei predicted a future of “poverty, brutalization, anarchy and a fatal absence of freedom” if countries do not make a quick U-turn and abandon the Future Pact to embrace an Agenda for freedom headed by him. His radical ideas have given him worldwide popularity and have inflated his ego to the point of proclaiming himself “one of the two most relevant politicians on planet Earth,” along with Trump. Argentina’s statistics are not, however, a good showcase for his ideas: half of the population is poor and it is the only one of the large Latin American countries with an economy in the red. His call also seems to ignore the fact that for now he lacks political allies capable of shaking the international order.
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