Macron in Argentina to “reconnect” Milei to the “international consensus”

Emmanuel Macron is expected in Argentina on Saturday to meet the ultraliberal president Javier Milei, admirer of Donald Trump, in the hope of “getting him off the hook” to "international consensus" à the day before the G20 in Brazil.

The French head of state is due to arrive in Buenos Aires at the end of the day, where he will be received for a one-on-one dinner with his Argentinian counterpart. They will then have another meeting on Sunday.

The moment is special. Javier Milei will have just returned from Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, where he met the president-elect of the United States. Two men who share a policy of deep cuts in public spending, which Donald Trump wants to implement when he returns to the White House in January and which the Argentinian, who describes himself as an “anarcho-capitalist”, has been practicing since coming to power eleven months ago.

They are also both toying with the idea of ​​turning their backs on major multilateral climate agreements and objectives.

In this context, Emmanuel Macron hopes to “overcome” the “divergences”, particularly environmental ones, to “convince Argentina to continue to participate in the international consensus”, explains the Elysée. And thus “to reconnect President Milei to the priorities of the G20”, which they will participate in on Monday and Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro.

Argentina has just withdrawn its delegation from the COP29 climate negotiations in Baku, and speculation is rife that it might withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. A gesture that Donald Trump himself made during his first term.

“It was President Milei himself who extended his hand” to France, they argue in Paris. It is also argued that Emmanuel Macron is one of the only foreign leaders received in Buenos Aires since his counterpart was elected, and that he can, with his experience in international circles, have an influence on the person whose first G20 summit this will be.

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Argentine President Javier Milei on August 14, 2024 in Buenos Aires © AFP – JUAN MABROMATA

The French president likes to display his ability to engage in dialogue with controversial, even ostracized, counterparts. Even if it means staging a certain proximity, without denying the divergences — even if the results of this approach have been mixed so far.

“It will be a test of Macron's weight and influence in Latin America,” said Oscar Soria, a veteran Argentinian climate activist. “If he fails to convince Milei to stay in the Paris Agreement, it will show that he has lost his aura in the region,” he adds, fearing that this will open the way to other “cascading” withdrawals from South American countries.

For Alejandro Frenkel, from the National University of San Martín, Emmanuel Macron, who had already opposed the former far-right Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro on deforestation, “has an interest in establishing himself as a reference” on environmental issues and “marking his difference.”

He will also advance these issues to explain to the Mercosur countries, including Argentina and Brazil, why he opposes the signing of a free trade agreement between this regional bloc and the European Union, this expert in international relations tells AFP.

While the forced reforms to bring Buenos Aires back to a balanced budget and try to emerge from a deep economic crisis are very controversial, France is rather complimentary, judging that they are “going in the right direction”.

Paris also intends to deepen economic relations, particularly in the field of critical metals, while Eramet has just inaugurated a lithium mine in Argentina.

According to Ariel González Levaggi, of the Argentine Council for Foreign Relations, Emmanuel Macron should also use his visit to advance the possible sale of French Scorpène submarines, even if the French presidency is playing down the state of progress of the negotiations.

“Argentina currently does not have any operational submarines and for the Argentine Navy, this is a priority”, he explains to AFP, while stressing that Buenos Aires must “overcome a funding problem”.

On Sunday, the French president will also pay tribute to the twenty or so French people who disappeared or were murdered under the Argentine military dictatorship between 1976 and 1979, while Javier Milei is regularly accused by his detractors of revisionism on this dark page in his country's history.

After Argentina, then the G20, Emmanuel Macron will travel to Chile, where he will deliver a major speech on Thursday before Congress in Valparaiso on his policy towards Latin America.

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