Javier Milei didn't bite his tongue when describing his counterpart Gustavo Petro. “He is a murderous communist who is sinking Colombia,” he answered without hesitation to the Colombian journalist Ángela Patricia Janiot in an interview that spread like wildfire on social networks this Friday and led to Colombia immediately dismissing its ambassador called in Buenos Aires. When it comes to ideological differences, the two presidents have been on a collision course for some time, and the words of the far right only reinforce that.
“Those who attack us have no idea what communism or socialism is,” Petro said this Friday during an event in the Pacific region, where his government was overthrown this week, without mentioning Milei by name. “We believe and want the means of production to be in the hands of the people, not the state,” he explained in a didactic tone, referring to a discussion about the port of Buenaventura.
“On behalf of the Government of Colombia, I present my most vigorous protest against the disrespectful and irresponsible statements made by the President of the Argentine Republic,” previously reacted Colombian Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva, who broke his silence with this message after his visit suspended by the Attorney General’s Office this week. “President Milei's words ignore and violate the deep bonds of friendship, understanding and cooperation that have historically united Colombia and Argentina and that have been strengthened over two centuries,” the Foreign Ministry added in an official statement.
“Milei is a hypocrite,” said the ambassador to Argentina, Camilo Romero. “Today, while asking our government for the approval of his new ambassador to Colombia, he calls President Gustavo Petro a murderer,” added the diplomat called for consultations, recalling that he had previously called the Brazilian Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and even the Pope Francisco attacked. “We can think differently, but the region and the historic brotherhood of our peoples must rise above all differences.”
In any case, it wasn't a completely unexpected encounter. Days before the second round of voting that led Milei to victory, Petro, the first left-wing president of what is now Colombia, had called on social networks to vote for his rival, the Peronist Sergio Massa. “Milei takes us back to Pinochet and Videla,” he then remarked, referring to the military dictatorships of Augusto Pinochet in Chile (1974-1990) and Jorge Rafael Videla in Argentina (1976-1981). “Argentina has defeated barbarism. It is the hour of hope. They choose between barbarism and hope. Congratulations to the Argentine people,” he had written after the result of the first round, in which Massa took first place.
Previously, at the start of the election campaign, Petro Milei had even compared Milei to Adolf Hitler after the Ultra leader said socialist politicians were “garbage, human excrement”. Milei answered him and from then on made it clear what a gulf separated them. “As a socialist, nothing surprises me, it’s part of decadence. This bothers us liberals a lot because we are embarrassing them,” he explained at the time.
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The two leaders represent opposing political projects on countless issues, as was evident this month at Milei's premiere at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The contrast was eloquent. “Capitalism is the only means we have to end hunger and poverty on the planet,” said the Argentine, praising businessmen as heroes, while the Colombian repeatedly invoked the role of the state in correcting inequalities. Milei even attacked those who warn about the dangers of climate change, while Petro, a staunch environmentalist, was very critical of capitalism in Davos. At his debut at the World Economic Forum a year ago, the Colombian advocated ending dependence on oil and coal and accelerating an energy transition. “We are reaching the point of no return, and the point of no return means the extinction of life,” he then dramatically warned.
The Argentine's insults to his Colombian counterpart, as well as his tirade against “communism” in Davos, have brought to light a Milei who had been appeased after his presidential victory. As dogmatic about his economic positions as he is about international politics, Milei left no enemy unnoticed during the campaign: He called Pope Francis a “dirty leftist” and said he would “not do business” with “communists” like China and Making Brazil – Argentina's main trading partner – described its neighbor, Chilean Gabriel Boric – with whom he spoke more cordially in this week's interview – as “impoverishing” and threatened to break up Mercosur, the region's main economic alliance.
Taking office as president was a blow to reality. After several disagreements, his government again turned to China to resolve differences. He retained the ambassador of the last Peronist government in Brasilia in his post because of his good relations with Lula and confirmed that he would visit the Pope in Rome in mid-February, and his chancellor has just returned from the Mercosur foreign ministers meeting in Buenos Aires where the priority of the meeting, according to the Argentine Foreign Ministry, was “strengthening the integration process.” But anyone who expected some restraint towards Petro was wrong.
Milei was somewhat more pragmatic as president than during the election campaign, but was still involved in Argentina's “return to the world” and tried to prioritize relations with the United States, where the Biden administration views him with suspicion due to Argentina's admiration for relations former President Donald Trump and for Israel, which faces a delicate moment in the eyes of the world because of its Gaza offensive – Petro, on the other hand, was a standard-bearer for the Palestinian cause. His clearest move was to eliminate a post from the previous government and forego joining the BRICS, the economic alliance led by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, even though this left an open door for international financing of a company represented so urgently needed. Argentina in crisis.
The insults against Petro did not have much circulation in Argentina because the president was embroiled in another controversy. With a minority in Congress, Milei is trying to give way to part of the opposition in order to get his state reform approved. His favorite tactic is to threaten provincial governments with cutting federal funding in the hope that congressmen will resign. “I will leave them destitute, I will melt them all down,” he even said in a Cabinet meeting this week, according to a report that ended up costing the minister who allegedly leaked the threat to the press dear job.
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