July 8, 2024.
Bolsonaro and Milei embrace at CPAC conference.
Argentine President Javier Milei participated in Brazil in the summit of the ultra-right CPAC (Conservative Action Political Conference), organized by Jair Bolsonaro, where he supported the former president -who faces a new indictment, this time for alleged misappropriation of assets- by maintaining that “he is being persecuted by the courts”. Milei had been straining relations with his peer Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and there was speculation about the possibility of a short-circuit in the bilateral relationship the two countries, but yesterday he restrained himself in his speech and avoided mentioning Lula or offending him. His criticisms were generally aimed at “Latin America’s socialism” which, Milei promised, “we will kick it out of every place where it is”.
Milei thus stepped on the brakes, and avoided taking the conflict with Lula to a higher level, which would put the Argentina-Brazil relationship on the verge of a rupture -as it happened when he traveled to Madrid, where he confronted the first president and secretary of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, Pedro Sanchez- But the trip itself implies a chapter that worsens the relationship between the governments of the two countries. This was Milei’s first visit to the neighboring country since he was elected president and it turned out to be quite a gesture that he did not meet with Lula, with whom he has never met. Let’s remember that Lula did not come to his swearing-in either, to which Milei preferred to invite Bolsonaro, giving him the treatment of head of state despite the fact that the ultra-right-winger had finished his term of office. Added to this are the steps backward being taken in Argentina’s insertion in the region, since Milei will not attend the Summit of Mercosur Presidents to be held today in Paraguay, with the excuse that “agenda issues” prevent him from doing so.
In fact, the ideologues of the Latin American right wing gathered in the seaside city of Camboriú includes the position of ending regional integration in order to facilitate a free trade agreement with the United States, even more so if Donald Trump (a regular at CPAC meetings) were to win the November elections.
Coups
It is known that Milei sees socialists everywhere; when speaking before CPAC he began by criticizing “the economic and cultural recipe of socialism in Latin America” -a term that includes the Kirchnerist governments- accusing them of their main sin, the increase in public spending. This is what he was talking about when he said that the opponents of his government are “coup plotters”. They are “the same people who fill their mouths talking about democracy, pluralism and oppression but are the ones who are willing to bend the rules and even to interrupt the constitutional order”, he assured. He gave as an example, “what is happening in Bolivia, where they are willing to stage a false coup d’état in order to score one more point in an election”.
As part of the same alleged coup plotting movements, he enlisted “the judicial persecution” that Bolsonaro, who has just been charged by the Brazilian federal police for the alleged misappropriation of a series of diamond jewelry, given to him on a trip to Saudi Arabia when he was president and which he should have returned when he left the government, would suffer.
Finally, Milei also described the demonstrations against the Bases Law as a product of this whole anti-free market network -it is surprising how many socialists there are in Argentina- which, according to the president, “are willing to take the path of violence and extortion to obstruct the changes demanded by society”.
He assured that “that is why, a few days ago, they sent a small army to sow chaos at the gates of Congress, setting cars on fire and vandalizing the city, in an attempt to extort the legislators to reject our reforms”.
And he congratulated himself for having managed to pass, in spite of everything, the Ley Bases with which “we have made the most important labor and economic reform in the Argentine history”, a reform “five times bigger than Menem’s”. “Or if we add the decree of necessity and urgency when we took office, eight times bigger than the biggest reform in Argentine history”.
The figures of the Summit
The CPAC meeting was attended by referents of the extreme right, such as the Chilean José Antonio Kast and the Mexican Eduardo Verásategui. The summit was organized by Bolsonaro’s son, Eduardo, his virtual personal “chancellor” and with whom Milei has a close relationship.
Milei thanked Jair Bolsonaro and his son Eduardo for the welcome and declared: “They really make me feel at home and it is always a pleasure to be among friends”.
He had traveled with his sister and Secretary General of the Presidency, Karina Milei, the Minister of Defense Luis Petri, the spokesman Manuel Adorni and the presidential documentary maker, Santiago Oría.
In other parts of his speech, Milei criticized Venezuela and Nicolás Maduro’s administration, which he described as a “bloodthirsty dictatorship”.
At the end of his speech he called for action and resistance against socialism. He stressed the need to maintain economic and political freedom, and encouraged his followers to fight for these values. “We are going to get out of misery, whether the socialists like it or not, with their support or without their support,” he proclaimed .
“People know that socialism is an impoverishing and violently murderous phenomenon. That is why they are dying out and we are going to kick them out wherever they are. The wind of change that started in Argentina and today is blowing around the world will reach every corner where freedom is repressed”.