Five ways in which Argentina's Milei has mirrored Trump

by Sonia AVALOS with Clare BYRNE in Bogota

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as the saying goes, and Argentina's President Javier Milei has made clear his admiration for Donald Trump by liberally borrowing from the US president's playbook.

On Wednesday, Argentina announced it would follow the United States out of the World Health Organization, echoing Trump's repeated complaints about what he called the body's mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Andrea Oelsner, professor of international relations at the University of San Andres in Buenos Aires, called Argentina's WHO exit "another sign" of the country's return to the policy pioneered by post-dictatorship president Carlos Menem in the 1990s of "automatic alignment" with Washington.

She added that Milei's claim that the WHO impinged on Argentina's sovereignty "serves to get closer to Trump."

Here are five other issues on which Argentina's self-declared "anarcho-capitalist" leader has followed his US counterpart's lead:

- Climate scepticism -

Like Trump -- who has vowed to "drill, baby, drill" -- Milei is a climate skeptic, who declared during campaigning for president that "policies that blame humans for climate change are wrong."

After Trump's re-election in November, Argentina abruptly pulled out of UN climate talks in Azerbaijan, raising fears Milei could imitate Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on curbing carbon emissions.

Argentina said it was "reevaluating" its participation in the deal.

The talks snub coincided with a visit by Milei to Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, the first foreign leader to visit the Republican after his election win.

But Milei nonetheless went on to sign a declaration by G20 leaders at a summit in Rio recognizing the need for "substantially scaling up climate finance."

- War on 'woke' -

Like Trump, Milei has repeatedly railed against what he calls "woke ideology", most recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos where he described it as a "cancer."

On Wednesday, his spokesman announced he would ban gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy for transgender children, days after Trump announced restrictions on gender transition procedures for minors.

Milei's government added that minors would also not be allowed to make any changes to their ID documents, including their gender, until they had reached adulthood.

- Mad about Musk -

Milei and Trump share a deep admiration for brash billionaire Elon Musk, with Milei lavishing praise on Trump's budget-slashing consigliere as the "Thomas Edison of the 21st century."

Trump for his part has given the Tesla and SpaceX boss, who has turned his X platform into an echo chamber for the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, extraordinary powers as the head of a new department in charge of slashing federal spending.

Musk, in turn, has championed Milei's "chainsaw" economics and declared Argentina to be "experiencing a giant improvement" since Milei took over.

- Social media attacks -

Both leaders have been accused of stoking hate speech and intolerance by copiously insulting critics and political opponents on social media.

Milei has labeled economists who question his policies "econochantas" ("eco-phonies"), trade unionists "garcas" ("crooks") and political opponents are "mandrills" (a type of monkey), "rats" and "parasites."

Like Trump, he and his online shock troops have also repeatedly attacked the media and critics as "corrupt" -- language reminiscent of Trump's 2017 promise to "drain the swamp" of Washington insiders and influence-peddlers.

- Iron-clad Israel support -

Milei, who has professed a deep interest in Judaism and studied Jewish scripture, is one of Israel's staunchest defenders.

During a visit to Israel last year he announced plans to move Argentina's embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem -- a controversial move that echoed Trump's shock 2017 decision to unilaterally recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

He also likened the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel to the Holocaust.

© Agence France-Presse