Tension between Argentina and Spain, an escalation of Milei’s ‘anti-diplomacy’

The hostility between Spain and Argentina after Javier Milei launched harsh attacks on the president of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sanchezhas become the worst diplomatic crisis of his government, which has already had confrontations with the leaders of Colombia, Venezuela and Mexico.

In his almost six months in office, the far-right president has vilified almost all the left-wing leaders in the region.

This practice crossed the Atlantic over the weekend and escalated. On a visit to Spain in which he did not meet with either Pedro Sánchez or the king, the Argentine leader accused of “corrupt”, without naming her, to Begoña Gómez, the wife of the president of the Spanish government.

As a result, Spain decided to withdraw “definitely” to her ambassador in Argentina, while Milei fueled the crisis by calling “coward” to Sánchez, from the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE).

“It is nonsense typical of a fatally arrogant socialist“Milei said this Tuesday to the LN+ channel about the ambassador’s withdrawal, clarifying that there will be no measure of reciprocity.

The clash with Madrid is the last and most serious of a saga. In March, Milei called her Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, “killer” and “terrorist” and said that the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was a “ignorant”.

The presidential verbosity led to Bogotá calling its ambassadors for consultations.

But Milei’s favorite target, and his nemesis, has been Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan ruler protected by some sectors of the left with whom he regularly exchanges insults such as “Nazi” and “dictator”.

This is without counting what Milei has said about other leaders when he was still a candidate, or even before running for president: he called Pope Francis “representative of the evil one on Earth” and to the president of Brazil, Luis Inácio Lula Da Silva, “wild lefty”.

But since taking office in December, the president “anarchocapitalist”, as he defines himself, has not publicly insulted the leader of the Latin American giant and Argentina’s first trading partner again; He also apologized to the pope and hugged him profusely when visiting him in Rome in February.

Figure of the global right

Milei embodies “the type of leadership typical of these ultra-right“Sergio Morresi, doctor in Political Science from the University of São Paulo, told AFP. “They tend to privilege their ideological agenda over issues of geopolitical interest”he added.

In your vision Milei “it repeats outwardly the strategy it applies at the domestic level in the sense of accelerating forward“, without measuring consequences.

Alejandro Rascovan, professor of International Security at the University of San Martín, defined the government’s foreign policy as “chaotic”.

“It prioritizes the political and personal ties of the president and there does not seem to be a state policy behind it“he told AFP.

So far in his government, Milei has traveled outside the country six times, three to the United States, his geopolitical north.

There he met twice with magnate Elon Musk, received a decoration from an Orthodox Jewish community and met former President Donald Trump.

Taking into account his two-headed relationship with the Jewish and Catholic religions, he also responded to his spiritual call with visits to Israel and the Vatican.

His last trip to Spain, last weekend, was to speak at a convention of the far-right Spanish party Vox, where he was welcomed like a rock star.

According to Roy Hora, historian at the University of San Andrés, in Milei’s diplomacy “convictions and conveniences seem to combine”.

For his part, Rascovan estimates that “It seems that Milei seeks to position herself as a global figure, perhaps it is her only real objective, it is impossible to know; But none of her efforts during her travels had, for now, any real results in investments.” for Argentina.

His detractors question the risks of a foreign policy that former Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero has described as “childish”.

For Hora, the crisis with Spain “It seems like another chapter in Argentina’s disorientation, which a decade ago celebrated the (deceased leftist Venezuelan president) Hugo Chávez and today is moving in a completely opposite direction.”.

“This marks the subordination of foreign policy to the short-term imperatives of domestic policy, and highlights the amateurism of our rulers and their lack of clarity about our long-term interests and our place – modest, perhaps irrelevant – on the international stage“, considered the expert.