President Javier Milei is once again shaking up the regional chessboard. He confirmed that on July 25 he will travel to Brazil to participate in the launch event of Flavio Bolsonaro as presidential candidate, and in passing, will visit former president Jair Bolsonaro in Brasília, who is serving house arrest after being convicted for an attempted coup d’état.
“On the 25th I travel to Brazil, where they are anointing Flavio Bolsonaro as candidate, and I will be in São Paulo. Then I will make a stop in Brasília to see Jair Bolsonaro,” Milei said during a radio interview, in which he also defended his government’s economic direction.
The gesture is a direct nod to the hard core of the Brazilian right, but also a slap in the face to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, with whom Milei maintains an icy relationship. The Argentine’s absence at the last Mercosur summit had already raised alarms at the Itamaraty Palace, and this new move promises to escalate diplomatic tension.
In parallel, at the Casa Rosada, expectations are growing for the organization of a summit of conservative presidents in Buenos Aires, which could bring together figures such as Bolsonaro himself, Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, and Peru’s Keiko Fujimori. Milei’s agenda does not stop: on July 28 he will be in Peru for Fujimori’s presidential inauguration, and on August 7 he will travel to Colombia to attend the swearing-in of Abelardo de la Espriella. He will also visit Noboa in Ecuador, with whom he will seek to advance bilateral agreements on trade, security, and institutional cooperation.
Milei, who presents himself as an anti-establishment leader, seems determined to build an alternative axis to Lula’s leadership in the region. But the move is not without risks: meeting with a person convicted of attempting a coup could cost him dearly in terms of international image, especially in a context where Brazilian democracy is still shaking off the ashes of the assault on the three branches of government in 2023.
“I’m going to see Jair, he’s a friend and a political persecuted,” Milei said, without mentioning the judicial conviction hanging over the former president. The Argentine opposition has already criticized the visit, calling it a “national shame.” Meanwhile, on the streets of São Paulo and Brasília, Bolsonaro’s followers celebrate the Argentine’s arrival as a boost to their leader.
Milei’s Latin American tour promises to be a thermometer of the new regional geopolitics, where the ideological divide deepens. Can the Argentine president maintain the balance between his conservative agenda and relations with neighboring countries? For now, the only certainty is that controversy is served.
Para mí esto es un golazo, Milei yendo a visitar a un patriota como Bolsonaro, no como ese zurdo de Lula que nos quiere cagar la vida. La derecha dura se une y los progres lloran como nenas, me parece bárbaro. ¡A romperla en Brasil y que tiemblen los zurdos!
para mi estos fachos se juntan para destruir latinoamerica milei y bolsonaro son lo peor antisociales negacionistas corruptos mientras ellos se abrazan el pueblo sufre viva lula viva maduro abajo la derecha basura 🤬✊🏻