The G20 Leaders’ Summit, hosted by Brazil this week, will bring President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, a rival of the PT member, face to face. The meeting promises to highlight the differences between the two leaders and test Lula’s pragmatism in the face of Milei’s resistance to the Brazilian agenda in the G20 presidency.
At the head of the bloc, the Lula government proposed an agenda based on three pillars: social inclusion with the fight against hunger and poverty; energy transition and sustainable development; and global governance reform. Milei has already shown that she has no interest in supporting these agendas.
Last week, during a meeting of the bloc’s Parliamentarians in Brasília, Argentina was the only country not to sign the letter of recommendations that the congressmen produced. The justification was Milei’s agenda at the head of Casa Rosada, which antagonizes the globalist agendas embraced by the Lula government during the presidency of the G20.
“The best way to reduce economic inequality and poverty is by promoting economic development based on the free market, and not through the implementation of collectivist policies that, although well intentioned, have historically given results contrary to those expected”, explained Jorge Santiago Pauli, Argentine deputy who represented the country in the P20.
The tendency is for misalignment to also occur in the final declaration of the G20 Summit, which is still being prepared.
In the assessment of Pedro Feliú, professor of International Relations at the University of São Paulo (USP), the stance that Argentines should adopt at the G20 should be to oppose globalist agreements focused on environmental solutions.
“Argentina will not join Brazilian initiatives [propostas no G20] and the election of Donald Trump in the United States will give enormous fuel to President Milei’s anti-globalist positions, already noted previously”, he assesses.
Javier Milei’s foreign policy must be similar to that which Trump must adopt from January of next year. “Foreign policy [de Trump] Before taking office, he already announced some important elements such as the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement – an agenda that is important for Brazil, which tries to capture international resources to protect forests and avoid carbon emissions, among other elements”, points out Feliú when explaining that Trump’s decisions can set the tone for positions adopted by Milei.
Argentina has already opposed resolutions on other G20 agendas
The projection made by analysts that Argentina may oppose proposals presented by the Brazilian government during the G20 reflects positions that the country has already adopted in other bloc agendas carried out by Brazil. The first demonstration was in October, when Brazil chaired the G20 Women’s Empowerment Working Group (GT).
The P20 Women meeting took place in Maceió and brought together more than 30 delegations from countries to discuss gender inequality and the inclusion of women in representative positions. In a final declaration, lawmakers intended to recognize that girls and women face specific gender-based inequalities around the world. Argentina, however, did not agree to sign the text.
The meeting ended without a consensus from the G20 countries. The information that circulated behind the scenes of the negotiation is that the veto would have come from Javier Milei himself, after his representatives escalated to him to negotiate Argentine support for the declaration.
Just over a month after the incident, Argentina repeated its opposition to documents surrounding the bloc. This time, members of the P20 met in Brasília and tried to reach a final declaration.
The document contained a series of recommendations that should be delivered to the bloc’s presidents next week, in Rio de Janeiro, and had a series of recommendations addressing measures to achieve the objectives proposed by the Brazilian presidency at the head of the bloc, such as sustainable development and global economic cooperation. Argentina, however, opposed the signing of the document.
Representative Santiago Pauli, from Javier Milei’s government base, criticized the “globalist” content of the document. “The best way to remedy the lack of participation of certain groups in politics is to encourage it based on individual merit. That is why, as members of the G20 and the international community, we invite other countries to rethink together an international agenda based on freedom”, said the parliamentarian.
Javier Milei identifies himself as a libertarian and defends minimal state intervention in social and economic issues, a position opposite to that of Lula, who has his political agenda centered on income distribution programs. This difference between the two leaders is what prevents them from getting closer and having a good relationship. A situation that, as pointed out by analysts, distances Brazilians from the desired position of regional leader.
“In this scenario, Brazil will have little capacity to influence and lead, through integration and regional consensus, larger global processes, whether in South America or even in Latin America. Therefore [a possibilidade de] Using South America as a springboard for Brazil’s global rise, with Milei, becomes much less feasible”, assesses Feliú.
Lula and Milei have been betting on pragmatism to maintain bilateral relations
Lula and Milei are antagonistic on the political spectrum and exchanged barbs during the libertarian’s electoral campaign for the Argentine presidency. Even though the tone has lowered in recent months and the noise between the leaders has diminished, there has never been a rapprochement between the two presidents. The adoption of a pragmatic relationship, according to analysts, occurred in favor of the relationship between Brazil and Argentina, which form the main commercial partnership in South America.
Not even during the G20, analysts estimate that there could be a rapprochement between the two presidents. “We shouldn’t see anything very friendly, nor very warm between the two parties”, points out Vito Villar, international policy consultant at BMJ Consultores Associados. Without a bilateral meeting planned so far, the expectation is that during next week’s agendas the two will only have “hallway conversations”.
Since assuming the Casa Rosada, Lula and Milei have not yet had bilateral agendas, an unusual situation between presidents of Brazil and Argentina. The Argentine leader came to Brazil in July and ruled out a meeting with Lula and participated in a meeting with regional right-wing leaders that took place in Balneário Camboriú, in Santa Catarina. During the visit, he met with former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
Even throughout this year, the two presidents had few agendas in common. Despite being invited by the Brazilian government to take part in the bloc’s discussions, there is no forecast of a bilateral between them and, as found out by the People’s Gazette with members of the Itamaraty, the Argentine would not have requested a meeting with Lula. The two leaders had already bumped into each other at the G7 Leaders’ Summit, which took place in June this year, in Italy, and there was no bilateral meeting either.
The distance between Lula and Milei, however, did not affect the relationship between Brazil and Argentina. The relationship between the chancelleries of both countries has remained close over the last year. The Brazilian chancellor, Mauro Vieira, and the then chancellor of Argentina, Diana Mondino, had at least four meetings in recent months to discuss the bilateral agenda in the area of trade and defense. The two ministers also exchanged official visits to the countries to discuss this agenda.
At the end of last month, Mondino was removed from her position as chancellor after voting in favor of ending the embargoes against Cuba, a position that did not please Javier Milei. The Argentine government then announced that Gerardo Werthein, Argentine ambassador to the United States, would take over the Foreign Affairs portfolio in the country.
Despite the fear raised by experts that the change could affect the relationship between Brazil and Argentina, the change of chancellors was not received with fear behind the scenes at Itamaraty. As found out by the People’s Gazette with members of the ministry, Werthein already maintained a good relationship with the Brazilian embassy in Washington and the prediction is that the good relationship that existed with Mondino should be maintained with the new chancellor.
