Europe vowed retaliation. China plotted tariffs of its own. Mexico scrambled to blunt the blow. However whereas the world’s leaders had been wringing their palms over President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs on U.S. imports, Argentina’s right-wing president was ebullient, feted at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago membership.
As a part of his enthusiastic outreach to Mr. Trump, Argentine President Javier Milei flew from one of many planet’s southernmost nations all the way in which to Palm Seashore for twenty-four hours to obtain an award honoring his libertarian agenda and, he’d hoped, to chat with Mr. Trump, who was additionally scheduled to attend the right-wing “American Patriot” gala.
“Make Argentina Nice Once more!” Milei bellowed from the ballroom stage at at Mar-a-Lago late Thursday.
It could have been the fourth face-to-face meeting between the leaders since Mr. Trump’s election victory final November as President Milei, who has imposed a sweeping austerity program to repair Argentina’s lengthy troubled financial system, presents himself as considered one of Mr. Trump’s strongest allies within the international tradition struggle towards the “woke” left.
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Whether or not Milei’s staunch alliance with Mr. Trump can really assist crisis-stricken Argentina stays to be seen, analysts say.
“He has a particular relationship with Trump that has been good for him politically, however he must translate that into being good for the nation economically,” mentioned Marcelo J. García, director for the Americas at New York-based geopolitical threat consultancy Horizon Have interaction. “He hasn’t managed to do this but.”
Earlier this yr, Milei pulled Argentina out of the World Well being Group after the U.S. announced its own exit.
He threatened to stop the Paris local weather accord after Mr. Trump did. He outlawed gender change remedies for minors after Mr. Trump banned transgender athletes from collaborating in girls’s sports activities. He even promoted a cryptocurrency token echoing the $Trump memecoin — at nice political price. In Milei’s case, the cryptocoin Libra collapsed and left traders holding the bag, to the tune of $250 million. He later admitted that he posted concerning the coin with out correctly vetting the main points.
Milei has additionally slashed authorities spending, equally to what Mr. Trump and Elon Musk have executed with the Division of Authorities Effectivity. He has decreased authorities spending in Argentina by over 30% since taking workplace in 2023 by eliminating a few dozen authorities businesses, shedding 10% of the federal workforce and freezing state wages and pensions. Whereas the cuts have lowered the nation’s hyperinflation, they’ve pushed up unemployment and poverty charges. Weekly protests have been held criticizing the cuts.
Catriel Gallucci Bordoni/NurPhoto through Getty Pictures 
The cuts had been one thing Milei promised whereas operating for workplace, even wielding a chainsaw throughout his marketing campaign. He then gifted Musk a giant chainsaw modeled after the ability software. Musk waved the chainsaw throughout remarks on the Conservative Political Motion Convention.
Railing towards socialism and feminism at talking occasions everywhere in the world — together with at CPAC — Milei has original himself into one thing of a MAGA superstar.
Argentinian authorities reacts to Trump tariffs
Whereas U.S. companions and rivals alike had been criticizing Mr. Trump’s tariffs, a tux-clad Milei was holding forth beside a portray of Mr. Trump’s pumped fist, reveling within the alternative to show himself a dogged champion of the American president.
“As you’ll be able to see, we conduct coverage with actions, not mere phrases, and on that we agree with President Donald Trump,” Milei informed the gang at Mar-a-Lago, drawing cheers on the point out of the American president’s title as he spoke in Spanish.
In Buenos Aires, Milei’s authorities sought to reconcile Mr. Trump’s main spherical of tariffs with its personal radical libertarian ideology and fervent help without cost commerce.
“We don’t imagine that is an assault on free commerce, fairly the other,” Milei’s spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, mentioned of Mr. Trump’s announcement. “I do not see why there needs to be a lot concern about this.”
For all of the leaders’ mutual flattery, Argentina was slapped with a ten% minimal tariff. However officers framed it as uniquely preferential remedy. The entrance web page of Argentina’s largest-circulation day by day, Clarín, declared: “Trump raises the tax on our merchandise lower than on different nations.”
In Washington, Argentine Overseas Minister Gerardo Werthein on Thursday held what he described as “extremely productive” conferences with prime U.S. commerce negotiator Jamieson Greer and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, releasing rosy statements promising that Argentina was on its option to negotiating a free-trade settlement with the U.S.
Milei praised progress towards the free deal in his Mar-a-Lago speech. However much more necessary to the Argentine chief is a hoped-for $20 billion bailout with the Worldwide Financial Fund. The badly wanted money would assist Milei preserve his bold financial reforms on monitor as stress mounts on the nation’s sparse international forex reserves.
Milei has already used govt powers to take away the necessity for Congress to approve a brand new IMF program. However the mortgage hasn’t cleared the end line, with negotiators nonetheless haggling over how a lot money Argentina, a serial defaulter that owes some $44 billion to the fund, can be allowed to entry up-front.
It was towards this backdrop on Wednesday that Milei, accompanied by his financial system minister, hopped on the airplane to the U.S., the fund’s largest stakeholder. He informed journalists he anticipated “a casual assembly” with Mr. Trump, who was instrumental throughout his first time period in serving to Argentina safe a serious $56 billion mortgage from the fund in 2018.
However on Friday, Milei’s much-anticipated photo-op with Mr. Trump was nowhere to be present in his publicist’s slick montage of the Argentine president snapping selfies with followers on Mar-a-Lago’s purple carpet.
The president’s workplace mentioned nothing about his assembly — or, non-meeting — with Mr. Trump, and didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.
Mr. Trump arrived at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Seashore very late Thursday night after attending an occasion with skilled golfers at considered one of his golf programs close to Miami. The White Home did not say whether or not he and Milei met.
Main Argentine newspapers cited nameless officers saying the leaders by no means met, drawing instantaneous scorn from his political enemies.
“After I awoke, I believed I would discover on TV the photo-op along with your ‘pal’ Trump that you just went on the lookout for,” left-wing former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner wrote on social media. “What a option to fiddle and spend cash on nothing.”
