The meeting lasted less than two minutes. The video that the government uploaded, in fact, has a total of 166 seconds, but until Javier Milei and Donald Trump settled in their seats, some moments passed. The meeting was more than brief, and did not even describe as a bilateral according to the American tycoon agenda. He even had informality trim – a gift tweet printed in a folder – and some Bloopers, such as the confusion of the American who thought that what now came in Argentina were an executive choice and not a legislative. Even so, this fleeting hand in hand was central to Milei in several lines.
The political and especially the monetary support that promised the United States brought an air that the government needed desperately. Milei, in the midst of the most delicate moment of his political career, embraces Trump to try to tie an administration crossed by the economic crisis and internal wires. Only a miracle of the northern forces can achieve it.
In God We Trust
It is difficult to translate into English, but what happened in recent days within the government is known in this soil as a “drowned swamp.” Although the possibility of having to resort to Uncle Sam before an emergency scenario had been cooking for months in the government, it was the Buenos Aires electoral beating and the days of anxiety that followed those who made two emergency alternatives activate: one was to eliminate the retentions to soybeans and the meat, a desperate measure to swell the skinny reserves of the Central Bank, and another was to lift the phone from the American help.
Milei’s story with Trump has several chapters. If you have to go back to the zero moment, it could be the public support that the American tycoon dedicated him to the libertarian since he got into politics, the almost feverish insistence that Milei had for years to know him -I had a failed attempt of a first meeting in the trip that the economist made to New York in November 2023, already as elected se -To end of 2024, with the newly elected tycoon, Milei first spoke in his media and political career as someone “right”, in an event of the CPAC Republican forum, while began to incorporate terms that he used to use before, such as “Wokismo” and apology for homophobia-, among other moments of this intense relationship.
Both were seen for the first time in February last year, in Washington, when Milei crossed him in a CPAC event to the shout of “Mister President.” However, they did not need to know each other to share something much more important, as they could account for the hundreds of memes, flags and shirts that at that time already had fans of both: the two leaders are referents of the new global right, which governs the United States, Argentina and so many other countries. They mark an agenda with their policies and forms, and not only the American: Milei’s chainsaw imported it not only Elon Musk but also the Ecuadorian Daniel Noboa. Trump and Milei, the “Che” Guevara would say, they may not be brothers but they are colleagues, which is more important.
All that flirtation – which included even the visit of the Libertarian to a Gala of the American in his residence, in November – was crowned with the support of the United States. But it did not happen only because of the carnal relations between Trump and Milei. In this story an actor that seems increasingly important in the libertarian galaxy: Leonardo Scaturicce.
The halls of power
The chroniclers who were covering the trip swore that they saw it. Scatturice, a surname that became famous after a plane from one of its companies landed in the country without due customs controls, was walking as one more at the Langhman Hotel, where Milei was staying and the entire presidential delegation. There are those who take another step: there is talk of a lobbist crossing with the president, a hand -to -hand meeting with Luis Caputo and the suspicion that it was he who leaked the data of the imminent agreement with the United States to Infobae, the first place that published it and that belongs to Daniel Hadad, with whom he joins a long link.
In fact, those who talked to Scatturice at this time ensure that he himself charges the medal of having been central in this story. I could well say that for that they are paid: in June the SIDE hired one of its companies, Tactic, to make lobby against the United States, for US $ 10,000 per month. In that company he has Barry Bennett, one of Donald Trump’s main lobbists and strategists.
Bennett was at the beginning and at the end of this story. In March he traveled to Argentina to meet with Santiago Caputo, meeting with which a postcard remained. The following month, this ground of the US secretary Scott Besent, who held a meeting with Milei and Luis Caputo at a key moment, when the new loan of Argentina with the IMF was negotiating this ground. All versions coincide in pointing out that Bennett’s support was definitive for Besent’s journey.
Scatturice’s partner was also in the CPAC of Paraguay in which Milei spoke days after the defeat in the province of Buenos Aires and returned – according to journalist Maia Jastreblansky in the nation – to meet with the Argentine president in the fifth of Olivos on Thursday 18. That happened right in the previous trip of Milei to the United States. It does not seem a coincidence.
In fact, then the visit of the libertarian, several members of the Government began to dispute the authorship of the management. Scatturice is one, what translated internally means that the credit is carried by Santiago Caputo, its local political partner. Those who speak followed with the advisor swear that this agreement would be something like “a farewell gift.” “That’s, Santiago is outside. He got all this support and silver and ready, he leaves after the choice,” they swear.
Chancellor Gerardo Werthein also wants to score his beans. Especially after what was the fiasco of Milei’s failed meeting with Trump in April, when the libertarian traveled to the residence of the tycoon with the promise of a hand -to -hand encounter that never materialized. The Broncas that day with Werthein were important, and some in the government swear that he was politically injured later. In fact, that is what they support under Scatturice and Caputo, which are even quick memory to remember Werthein’s past Democrat, in the years in which he was a fervent admirer of Cristina Kirchner at the local level. In the background, what is cut is the imminent restructuring of the cabinet after the legislative, and there are several ministers who do not feel that their place is insured. In fact, in the red circle the idea that before an eventual defeat there will be a “take over” of the cabinet by the macrismo and the governors will grow.
Carnal relationships
On Tuesday 23 was Trump’s “endorsment”, but the most important thing happened the next day. There Scott Besentt announced on their networks that “they will do everything necessary” to support the Argentine government, and reported that they are in negotiations to grant a swap-an exchange of coins-of US $ 20,000 million, buy Argentine bonds in dollars and even, if necessary, an “important Stand-by credit” through its exchange stabilization fund.
The support was total and had an immediate effect, which meant air for a government that was against the ropes. The country risk, which had been growing through the clouds, went down immediately. So did the price of the dollar, while Argentine bonds and shares began to rise. In addition, the support was historic in several ways. The only background of something like that, of a direct loan from the American coffers to other nations, are Mexico in 1995 and Uruguay in 2002. But there are several differences with the current case: the two countries were collapsed by exogenous crises – the “tequila effect” for the first, and the Argentine outbreak in the second – and the two had different weight. Mexico is a vital commercial partner of the United States, so any serious blow that also has an impact on its neighbor. And that of Uruguay was a much smaller loan if compared to the numbers that are now considered for Argentina, of only US $ 1.5 billion. The tone of Besentt’s message and Trump left no doubt: the support was direct to Milei.
All international politics analysts agreed to connect this support to the time that the region is going through. Especially to the open contest Trump maintains with Lula since the US government decided to impose sanctions on Brazil after the conviction of Jair Bolsonaro, tactical ally of the American tycoon. With Boric in Chile, Petro in Colombia, Maduro in Venezuela and the aforementioned Lula, it would seem that Trump – which also comes with an agenda of withdrawing the giant from the north of the conflicts on the other side of the puddle, to focus on the continent itself – does not want to risk a return of Peronism or some other space that they consider “left” in the country.
The United States also follows the growth of China’s presence in the region. The Asian giant alternates, from 2020 onwards, the first and second place of Argentina’s main commercial partner, in addition to supporting investments such as dams or setting a spatial base in Neuquén that, until 50 years of that agreement are completed, is strictly a piece of Chinese territory in this soil. Scatturice and Santiago Caputo can be very good lobbists, but there are more important factors that move this machinery.
In that tuning of geopolitical interests, after the support grew again in the red circle an old yearning of Milei: the idea of eliminating the Argentine currency and changing it for the dollar. It is a proposal that, according to what they talk to the president, he never abandoned at all in his head, and that he would now have returned strongly. In fact, the one who raised the profile was Emilio Ocampo again, the first pointed by Milei to occupy the Ministry of Economy before Luis Caputo. “You have to dollarize,” he uploaded to his networks a few hours before Trump’s encounter with Milei. In the business, there is a small group of local magnates who insisted the libertarian again with this idea. There are those who swore that the decision is just around the corner. For now they are talk.
The truth is that, beyond Trump’s support, the Argentine economy is still stagnant. And that it would seem that that will be that defines the imminent elections. Milei will need much more than a tweet to cross that challenge.
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