Year XXXVII, Number 2, July 2024

Fernando Iglesias
Co-President of the World Federalist Movement, Director of the Spinelli Chair in Buenos Aires,
Member of the Argentinian Parliament

It is quite complicated to talk about the Milei phenomenon, which has very local characteristics, to a European public. We always start with an inevitable confusion. Seen from Europe, Milei is the Argentine counterpart of Bolsonaro, Trump, Orban and so on. False friends, they say in linguistics. This way of seeing things, based on the left-right distinction that belongs to civil and democratically consolidated societies, does not take into account the Latin American reality, nor, even less, the Argentine one, which has always been very peculiar. Using the left-right scheme to understand the Milei phenomenon is like trying to orient yourself in the Amazon with a map of the Manhattan subway.

I will try to say it briefly and brutally, hoping not to offend anyone: Argentina is not New York, but Sicily. And Sicily before Falcone. The central distinction, therefore, is not between right and left, but between those who are with the mafia and those who are against the mafia. The mafia, of course, is Peronism, which arrived in 1945 in a country that was the ninth richest in the world and had the most advanced social legislation and public education in Latin America, and much of Europe; in eighty years it has destroyed the country with the invaluable help of its complementary ally-enemy, also born from the armed forces: the Military Party. In 1945, Italians, Spaniards and Europeans in general were migrating to the Argentina before Perón. Today, their grandchildren flee to the countries abandoned by their ancestors, looking for a place to live like normal people.

The Milei phenomenon must be understood in this perspective; he may resemble Trump and Bolsonaro in his way of speaking, but he has no power to carry out a reactionary program.

You cannot understand Milei without understanding this, or without observing that in these last twenty years of Kirchner-style Peronism all Latin American countries - except us - have made great steps forward. With right-wing governments and left-wing governments, but without conniving with mafias in command. Greater production, less poverty, net progress in health and public education, single-digit inflation. Here, despite the very favorable international context, we are far behind. Thus, talking of center-left politics in referring to the last Peronist cycle is just a joke. The economy is destroyed. There is no petrol in a country that has the second largest reserves of non-conventional gas and oil in the world. The Central Bank is in the red; public debt is the highest ever, under that government. And, above all, there has been a 211% inflation in 2023, and five million more indigent people in just four years. All this, while they sing the hymn to Perón, a great admirer of the Duce and leader of the workers... Is this possibly centre-left?

From the resulting malaise, Milei comes out. The Milei phenomenon is to be understood in this perspective: he may resemble in his way of speaking Trump and Bolsonaro, but from an operational point of view he has no power to carry out a reactionary program. Trump has the Republican Party with him. Bolsonaro has the evangelists, the consolidated Brazilian right and the army. Milei has almost no party. Milei has nothing except the vote of 56% of Argentines. His is the government with the lowest parliamentary power in Argentine history, and depends heavily on allies whose democratic and republican tradition is beyond question; and with that so faint a following he has to face the largest economic crisis in our history, full of dramatic episodes. A hyperinflationary crisis is now very likely, with potentially devastating social consequences. Therefore, the problem of the Milei government is not that he has too much power and could change for the worse, but that he has too little power for changing a nationalist and corporate economic model, which must be changed lest the country explodes.

The same goes for international relations. Of course, during the campaign Milei made statements against the UN and its 2030 Agenda, promised to leave the Mercosur, and drew up a Bolsonaro-style program. But in practice, since the Foreign Minister Diana Mondino has been in government, everything has proceeded reasonably. Indeed, much better than with the previous government, which made great speeches but ended up being an ally of Putin (“the door is open to Russia in Latin America”, Fernandez promised Putin two weeks before the invasion), so much so that it left the country to China with loans and concessions for public works, further damaging the  Mercosur and putting it at risk of breaking up; blocking the European Union-Mercosur agreement; and being the active supporter in the region of the Iranian regime and the worst Latin American dictatorships: Venezuela and Cuba.

Milei's international program, however, is perfectly in line with a progressive and federalist vision. First of all: full support to the European Union-Mercosur agreement, whose approval, prepared by the Macri government, would be an enormous positive example of an alliance between two models of regional integration, and would constitute the largest common market in the world. Mondino also resumed negotiations to incorporate Argentina into the OECD, started by the Macri government and interrupted by the Peronist Fernandez for obvious reasons: the transparency of administrative practices that Argentina should guarantee to the OECD is against the central interest of the Peronist mafia: appropriating state funds, as has been done during this twenty-year period, the most corrupt in our history.

Furthermore, Milei's Argentina is also resuming contacts with all countries and all continental blocs in the world, including NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The goal of a country that takes the side of international law and is in favor of an economy open to the world (as Argentina was before Peronism) is part of Milei government's program. And, given the result of the protectionism of recent years, which has made Argentina (along with Venezuela) the only Latin American country that has suffered setbacks, I cannot agree more.

As a Spinellian that I am, I love facts more than speeches. For this reason I believe that, without excluding problems deriving from an at least complex personality as Milei's, or possible accidents along the way, Argentina's international situation can only improve. There is no need of magic, just common sense: Peronism has set the bar so low that it is difficult to do worse. Guarantees? None. As an Italian cosmopolitan friend of mine said when I confided to him my ideas, full of optimism and hope: “chi vivrà vedrà” [only time will tell]. In fact, history remains open, but the past and its facts cannot be changed. If I understand correctly, it is from the facts – and not from desires and ideological schemes, that have nothing to do with reality – that we must start from. Let's try.