Argentina is looking to become NATO’s ‘global’ partner, and the southernmost one at that, joining the ranks of Australia, Iraq, Japan and other US satellite states. Who is President Javier Milei, arguably one of the world’s most bizarre leaders, eyeing as his military rival?
Whenever an election is won by an oddball or an ex-con with an endless rap sheet, it is often downplayed as merely a flip side of democracy. Latin America is the world’s region where this flip side has almost become a norm.
The 1996 presidential election in Ecuador was won by Abdalá Bucaram, a former athlete nicknamed El Loco Que Ama (The Madman Lover). His victory was precipitated by a suite of circumstances, the most prominent being the fact that he was a nephew of a popular politician and a brother-in-law of the liberal President Roldos. The latter is said to have been assassinated in a CIA plot featuring the Ecuadorian military. After establishing the populist Roldosist party and then coming into power, Bucaram did not come across as a worthy successor of his popular uncle and brother-in-law, not even as a self-avowed lunatic. Instead, he had a reputation as a corrupt authoritarian goon. Several months into his presidency, a month into the mass protests and two weeks into the general strike, the parliament impeached him as being ‘mentally unfit’, a madman, that is.
In 2023, the presidential election in Argentina was won by Javier Milei whose eccentricities even dwarfed those of Bucaram. He called his famous countryman, Pope Francis, ‘a piece of s**t’, wielded a chainsaw at his campaign rallies, contemplating converting to Judaism, branded himself as ‘a tantric sex guru’ and lived with the clones of his dead pup he is reportedly still contacting via a private medium to this day. His persona makes El Loco Que Ama seem like a down-to-earth fellow whose craziest fantasy was that of playing a $1M football match against Diego Maradona.
The mass protests started on day one of Milei’s tenure and have not stopped ever since despite a major crackdown from the local law enforcement. The parliament vehemently opposed Milei’s multi-page ‘mega-decree’ reform programme and has been striking off its proposals one by one. It may look like the newly minted Argentinian leader will follow in the former Ecuadorian president’s footsteps, except Milei’s safety cushion is now much bigger than Bucaram could ever dream of. The thing is, the Ecuadorian leader and his famed family were critical, if not opposing, of Washington, whereas Milei is looking to fill in the shoes of a U.S. South American ally, almost a Red-Listed species.
As if stressing this would-be status, Luis Petri, Argentina’s new defence minister, has sent a letter of intent to the NATO authorities in a bid to become the transatlantic military alliance’s ‘global partner’.
This status was devised for the nations who could be granted membership if it were not for the Treaty’s Article 10 limiting the member states to Europe and North America only. The list of such ‘global partners’ will hardly come as a surprise. It includes English-speaking Australia and New Zealand; Japan and South Korea, the longtime American allies in Asia; the American-occupied Iraq, Afghanistan (before the Taliban regained power) and Pakistan that has re-entered the Anglo-Saxon orbit following the dismissal and the arrest of the ‘people’s prime minister’ Imran Khan.
The only odd man out on the list is Mongolia, which has traditionally been a friendly state towards Russia. However, the prime reason behind its decision was the long-standing Mongolia–China tensions. Besides, Mongolia was granted the partner status before the start of the second Cold War when the alliance hailed Moscow as its enemy.
But today’s world is different. It is yet again about bloc allegiances and a bloc rivalry. And unlike Mongolia, Argentina’s partnership looks straight-up crazy.
This craziness is much akin to the multiple personality disorder. Driven by political opportunism, Milei seeks to cosy up to the military alliance whose key member state is the UK, a country that occupies a part of Argentina, as viewed by the Argentinians themselves.
We are talking the Falklands (or Islas Malvinas, if you will) that had been heavily contested between the British and the Spanish empires since the 18th century. Though geographically it is indeed Argentinian territory, the local population of under 2,000 thinks otherwise, and so does NATO.
That being said, the Argentinians are big on the ‘temporarily lost territory’ theory, almost as big as the Japanese are on the Kuril Islands identity, but with a telltale Latin American twist. Milei is pursuing way too radical of a policy and dropping this territorial claim would not be much out of character, but, to be fair, once he was elected, he challenged the Brits on the islands’ status right away, proposing a ‘Hong Kong scenario’.
But now this same individual is yearning to partner up with NATO, thus parting with the rest of the continent as an Anglo-Saxon protectorate. Mind, the continent they are disavowing is full of rebellious left-wingers in stark opposition to Washington, speaking mostly the same language and sharing much of the cultural code, with nations that could potentially display regional solidarity in the Falklands sovereignty dispute.
Currently, the only country in Latin America that is NATO’s ‘global partner’ is Colombia. Amid the decades-long internal conflict between the far-right government and the far-left guerrilla groups, the former was heavily reliant on the US that in turn always had their back. But in repaying the favour, the Colombians had to fight for the US interests in Korea.
Times have changed, though. The civil conflict is drawing to a close, while Gustavo Petro, the new left-wing president with a guerrilla background, a vocal critic of both Israel and the US, appears very much in line with the current political trends in Latin America, which cannot be said of Milei. Who is he expecting to take on as he enters the alliance with the British? Perhaps Cuba?
Gustavo Petro understandably needs more time to get into the presidential groove and maybe end the NATO partnership. It is hard to tell if he is even fully aware of the status. Otherwise, he may have already split with the organization Milei is trying to curry favours with.
This is not, however, the first time Milei’s foreign policymaking lands at odds with the reality. After winning the presidency, he amicable embraced the pontiff, the one he had been calling the names we will not dare repeat.
Another example is Milei’s supportive attitude towards Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky. Yet, Milei somehow cannot help admiring Donald Trump and his ‘Ukraine plan’ in spite of Trump cold-shouldering Ukraine, which has Kiev dreading his potential return to the Oval Office.
By the way, NATO is, too, fearful of Trump’s re-election prospects, seeing as the Maga crowd exudes much scepticism toward the alliance Milei, a hardcore Trump fan, is seeking to associate with.
Other examples include Javier Milei’s comments on China, which he slammed as an unfree country. They are murdering people, he said, and we should balk at trading with murderers. The statement, however, did nothing to change China’s status as Argentina’s second-largest trade partner after Brazil. Perhaps the Chinese authorities do not want to take Milei seriously and have, instead, decide to wait for the day the Argentinians will eventually sour on their leader and kick him out of the presidential palace.
One thing we need to realise about Milei is that he is utterly incompetent when it comes to foreign policy and politics overall, for that matter. He is a trained economist. For all his quirks, the Argentinian leader has a strong academic background in the economic theory and was quite a successful analyst – his charisma played a role too, for sure – before running for office and turning to practical matters.
Economic reforms are exactly what the Argentinians want their president to embark on. Milei was propelled into office in the wake of some serious circumstances that include the country having the highest inflation rate on the continent (even higher than Venezuela) and being the biggest debtor to the IMF.
Milei’s shock therapy that involves economic austerity measures and cuts to the government spending (Luis Caputo, the country’s finance minister, is known for his ‘There is no money’ refrain) may have sparked street protests, but it still enjoys the support of 52% to 57% Argentinians (depending on the polls) who clearly realise it is both impossible and unbearable to continue in the previous vein, and so, the economy needs a reboot.
To be able to fend off the parliament over his reform plan, Milei apparently lacks political experience. The past three months have shown he is ready to meet them halfway (for instance, he has dropped the largest oil company from the list of businesses to be privatised), but he is not the one to give up. This is his biggest challenge yet, whereas the foreign policy is just an additional headache, which leads to his poor decision-making.
The outcome of the challenging battle he is locked into will be refereed by the Argentinian people – and their verdict may well be a harsh one. As for everything else he does, the eccentric economist Javier Milei just cannot be taken seriously.