Milei heads conservative forum in Brazil, snubbing Lula and exacerbating a political dispute

Faced with the choice between a far-right convention to attack his enemies and a presidential summit to discuss regional trade policy, Argentine President Javier Milei preferred a stadium full of cheering supporters.

The libertarian leader was in Brazil on Sunday, preparing to headline the national version of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), alongside former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in the city of Balneario Camboriu, in southern Brazil.

By skipping the Mercosur trade bloc summit in Paraguay and sneaking up on Bolsonaro just days after federal police charged the right-wing populist with a scheme to embezzle Saudi diamonds, Milei lashed out again at Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, escalating a dangerous dispute with his country’s biggest trading partner.

It was the latest example of Milei’s provocative foreign policy, which seeks to attract global attention through friendships with far-right allies rather than following diplomatic conventions.

Bolsonaro on Sunday posted a video greeting Milei with a big hug and a pat on the back before meeting him and his sister and adviser, Karina Milei, among other attendees. The two men stood next to their respective national flags for a photo op that would have seemed presidential had Bolsonaro not been a disgraced former president under police investigation for his alleged attempt to subvert the outcome of Brazil’s 2022 election.

The previous night, Bolsonaro He opened Brazil’s CPAC with a fiery speech declaring his desire to see former US President Donald Trump return to the White House next year. He and Milei were seen together later that night, watching Uruguay knock Brazil out of the Copa America in a room full of attendees and empty wine glasses.

Since the irascible Milei came to power in December promising to solve Argentina’s worst economic crisis in two decades, relations between Brazil and Argentina have deteriorated rapidly. Milei has branded Lula a “communist” and refused to deal with him. Lula has turned his back on Milei and demanded an apology for what he considers his “foolishness.”

The ideological foes first crossed paths at the Group of Seven summit in Italy last month, where their efforts to avoid each other as much as physically possible grabbed local headlines.

Experts say mingling on the sidelines of the South American trade bloc’s meeting on Monday would have offered Milei a low-risk opportunity to ease tensions with Brazil, which buys nearly a sixth of Argentina’s exports, supplies most of Argentina’s auto industry and backs its neighbor’s bid for much-needed aid from the International Monetary Fund.

Instead, Milei has doubled down on a foreign policy that experts have criticized as misguided. Because of the investigation weighing on Bolsonaro, experts see him as a political liability.

“It seems like he’s shooting himself in the foot,” Michael Shifter, a Latin America scholar at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, said of Milei. “It’s shocking and counterproductive for him to mock Lula in this way because there could be a huge cost to Argentina, which could affect its ability to carry out its policies.”

The president’s ideological strategy sparked a political storm earlier this year in Spain, Argentina’s second-biggest foreign investor, when Milei avoided meetings with the socialist government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and instead gave a speech attacking socialism at a far-right rally organised by Spain’s Vox party.

The snub turned into a diplomatic crisis between the historic allies when Milei called Sánchez’s wife corrupt and Spain recalled its ambassador from Buenos Aires.

Despite five trips to the United States since taking office, Milei has yet to enter the White House: she embraced Trump at CPAC in Washington, professed her love for free markets in Texas with billionaire Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and the social network X, and met with heads of technology companies in Silicon Valley.

“It seems to me that he wants to impose himself as a rock star of international politics, perhaps he caused a certain admiration and impression in some sectors of Argentina,” said Fabio Rodríguez, director of the consulting firm M&R Asociados, based in Buenos Aires. “I think that is changing, as some opinion polls have already picked up on, and many sectors are seeing it as a demerit, a liability that the president travels so much around the world and people feel abandoned in the sense that there are everyday things that do not improve.”

This time with Brazil — Latin America’s largest economy with a population of about 200 million — experts say the stakes are even higher. Pressures are mounting in Argentina, where the local currency last week hit a record low of 1,430 Argentine pesos per dollar on the black market, where Argentines sell their depreciated currency.

“I think that in that relationship, in that fight, Argentina would have much more to lose than Brazil itself,” according to Cristian Buttié, director of the polling firm CB Consultora.