French President Emmanuel Macron is expected in Argentina on Saturday to meet with libertarian President Javier Milei, an admirer of Donald Trump, in hopes of “reintegrating him” into the “international consensus” ahead of the G20 summit in Brazil.
The French President is scheduled to arrive in Buenos Aires in the evening, where he will be hosted by his Argentine counterpart for a private dinner. The two leaders will then have another meeting on Sunday.
The timing is significant: Milei will have just returned from Mar-a-Lago, Florida, where he met with the US president-elect.
The two men share a policy of drastic cuts in public spending, which Trump plans to implement when he returns to the White House in January, and which the self-described “anarcho-capitalist” Milei has been enacting since taking office eleven months ago.
Both leaders are also inclined to turn their backs on major multilateral climate agreements and goals.
In this context, Macron hopes to “overcome” their “differences,” particularly on environmental issues, to “convince Argentina to continue participating in the international consensus,” according to the Elysée.
This would involve “aligning President Milei with the G20’s priorities,” which they will attend on Monday and Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro.
Argentina recently withdrew its delegation from the COP29 climate negotiations in Baku, fueling speculation about a potential exit from the Paris Climate Agreement—a move Trump himself made during his first term.
“It was President Milei himself who reached out” to France, officials in Paris note. They emphasize that Macron is one of the few foreign leaders to have been received in Buenos Aires since Milei’s election and that Macron’s experience in international forums could influence Milei, for whom this will be his first G20 summit.
Tribute to the Victims
Macron is known for engaging in dialogue with controversial, even ostracized leaders, often displaying a certain level of closeness without denying differences – though the results of this approach have been mixed so far.
“This will be a test of Macron’s influence in Latin America,” says Oscar Soria, an Argentine activist and veteran climate negotiator. “If he fails to convince Milei to remain in the Paris Agreement, it will show he has lost his influence in the region,” he warns, concerned that this could open the door to further “cascading” withdrawals by other South American countries.
According to international relations expert Alejandro Frenkel of the National University of San Martín, Macron, who previously clashed with Brazil’s far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro over deforestation, “has an interest in establishing himself as a reference” on environmental issues and in “highlighting his differences.”
He will also raise these issues to explain to Mercosur countries, including Argentina and Brazil, why he opposes signing a free trade agreement between this regional bloc and the European Union, according to Frenkel.
While the fast-track reforms aimed at restoring Buenos Aires to budgetary balance and pulling it out of a deep economic crisis are highly controversial, France has been rather complimentary, seeing them as “moving in the right direction.”
Paris also aims to deepen economic ties, particularly in the field of critical metals, with Eramet having recently inaugurated a lithium mine in Argentina.
According to Ariel González Levaggi of Argentina’s Council for International Relations, Macron is also expected to use his visit to push forward the potential sale of French Scorpène submarines, although the French presidency downplays the state of the negotiations.
“Argentina currently has no operational submarines, and for its navy, this is a priority,” he told AFP, noting that Buenos Aires needs to “overcome a financing issue.”
On Sunday, the French President will also pay tribute to the roughly twenty French citizens who disappeared and were murdered during Argentina’s military dictatorship between 1976 and 1979, while Milei is frequently accused by his critics of revisionism regarding this dark chapter in his country’s history.
After Argentina and the G20, Macron will travel to Chile, where he will deliver a major speech on his Latin America policy before Congress in Valparaiso on Thursday.
Francesco Fontemaggi and Leila Macor, with AFP
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