Milei’s disruptive foreign policy

At the end of the year, the Chancellor Pablo Quirno starred in an episode in which a recurring symptom recurred. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship is perhaps the most conflictual for the government of Javier Milei.

In just two years of management had three ministers also face each other a foreign policy that has become moderate on some issues but remains destructive on othersalso with its own internal laws.

Quirno engages in active militancy on social networks in line with the Milei era. Inform, react and “fight”. But like Milei, who has a VLLC! an end to the punishments was imposed, and Adorni gave his stamp “END” to end his punishments. For example, in the early morning hours of the last day of 2025, he reported on networks that such networks existed ordered the initiation of summary measures against the young diplomat Alejandro Calloni, Secretary of the Argentine Embassy in Syria, who is also quickly brought into the country.

The minister learned from X users that Calloni – who left ISEN K – had “liked” a post that promoted attacks on Israelsomething he should never have done, and especially not in his capacity as an official. However, everything that happened with Quirno’s way of communicating was strange. The episode happens at a time when details are being adjusted to move the Argentine embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. They are considering holding the event next April.

And it shows that the goals remain in line with the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. If that happens, Milei could travel to Jerusalem again, after touring Davos in January and the US in March to take part in Argentine Week in New York. And there we wait for Trump to sign a trade deal. It also offers Travel to Chile for the inauguration of President-elect José Antonio Kast.

Quirno takes over the already set agenda for his management and seems even more connected than Diana Mondino and Gerardo Werthein to the mission of the Forces of Heaven, of Santiago Caputo and his mission “Culture Clash”. A war against so-called “progressivism”, both internally and in international organizations, although at the same time reality sometimes imposes a certain pragmatism.

By prioritizing trade, the president stopped insulting heads of state and leaders with whom he disagrees because they are left-leaning. He called them “terrorists,” “murderers,” “leftists,” “corrupts,” “poisoned communists” – as he called Lula da Silva. But even as the president pursues a foreign policy that champions democracies — and rejects dictatorships, including those of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua — he turns a blind eye to some autocracies.

Mondino was reportedly kicked out of the State Department in October 2024 in the middle of a trap set by the State Department Argentine vote to lift trade embargo against Cuba. With the support of La Rosada’s libertarian sector, which promotes free trade at all costs, Mondino’s team voted to lift the embargo. The Milei knew nothing about it. Santiago Caputo swore that neither was the case, although La Derecha Diario and several libertarian tweeters initially highlighted the message as positive and then deleted it.

Since he did not do this with employees of another ministry, Milei meanwhile sent a letter to the Foreign Ministry – which he considered “chaste” – warning that anyone who disagreed with his government should leave. Charges were brought against the diplomats for voting for Cuba. They are all still open.

The arrival of businessman Gerardo Werthein The ministry’s visit was no less traumatic. The entire PRO line was punished and, strangely enough, Werthein surrounded himself with diplomats linked to Kirchnerism, which remains linked to the new minister, which is only minimally contradictory to the insult to the “Kukas” in the networks. The entire PRO and Radical Mondino team was punished. The Werthein K team, excellent.

He The current chancellor is still not implementing the appointment of a vice-chancellor or a chief of staff. The activities are carried out at the administrative level, but with the institutional framework deactivated. The State Department was significantly restricted in its international potential and closed by presidential order. There are important messages with no leadership or little representation. The one in Iran was “temporarily” closed.

Werthein left the party upset about the Milei: He resigned before the parliamentary elections on October 26th, thereby showing a clear break. From the start, he was at odds with the powers of heaven and was not welcomed by the Trump administration or the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

In the Chancellery a double sensation exists side by sideas this newspaper learned. On the one hand, With Quirno there is peace of mind and better treatmentwhich will not advance the recent ruling of the Argentine judiciary, which confirmed that diplomats will continue to enjoy the advantage of not paying to Earnings for the salary bonus they receive abroad. On the other hand, there is a minister – unlike Werthein – who enjoys his role and supports the ministry wherever it is receives ambassadors in strict political and economic harmony with Milei. This is the case of the Chinese woman Wang Wei, who is preparing another mission of Chinese parliamentarians led by Juliana Santillán. The MP is seeking to retain the chairmanship of the External Relations Commission, which is vacant after the term of Fernando Iglesias, the new ambassador to the EU, ends in December.

“Quirno is a gentleman,” they insisted at the Foreign Ministry, trying to counteract the panic that was spreading within the ministry because Calloni’s punishment for his serious professional and ethical mistake was being publicly displayed. But on Thursday the 1st, another incident occurred that shows that someone in the ministry is doing “digital patrol.”

Quirno called out Argentina’s ambassador to Bern, Gustavo Lunazzi, for not updating the headquarters’ website. What is striking is that it lists all of Argentina’s historical commitments to UN human rights policy. It is the most annoying thing for the libertarian fight that does not join them.

But the most important thing about Quirno – his challenge – is that he must capitalize on his preparation his connections as a former Treasury Secretary to the Republican administration to conclude trade agreements: the first one, which is the most important to Milei, with USA. But also with Mercosur, the European Union and even the one negotiated with the British. You will have to discuss Duty to achieve better access for Argentine exports to the US market while balancing the enormous volumes Improve trade relations with China without angering Trump.

You need to keep relationships less fluid and Provide impulses for the new “club” of the right in the regionin particular with the ring consisting of Milei, the Chilean José Antonio Kast, the Bolivian Rodrigo Paz and Santiago Peña, Paraguay. And now we are assembling the bloc and summit of the international right that Milei wants to build, as the nation’s president just reiterated to CNN.

When comparing the governments of Werthein and Quirno, elements of both deepening disruptive politics and continuity emerge. On the one hand, a disruptive foreign policy is intensifying with a minister who is more conservative than the businessman but has strong ties to the Democratic Party and Kirchnerism.

In November and December in United Nations General AssemblyArgentina was absent from a vote on the protection of humanitarian and UN personnel, which passed by 153 votes to one (US). He also abstained from a resolution calling for the return to Syria of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.

In addition, he voted – in an absolute minority – against the annual report of the International Criminal Court (ICC), of which Argentina was a founding member and whose first prosecutor was Luis Moreno Ocampo. He also voted against the condemnation of torture, the care economy, the self-determination of Palestine, aid to Palestinian refugees, the permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people over their natural resources, the Declaration on Noncommunicable Diseases and the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

In doing so, Argentina violated its domestic law, the international human rights treaties to which it is a party – with a constitutional hierarchy since 1994 – and the national policy in force since the return of democracy.

On the other hand, The government did not endorse the statement by the leaders of the G20 chaired by South Africa. Milei, in line with Trump, was not even present and sent Quirno and Federico Pinedo, a G20 Sherpa whom the president does not receive.

While Milei criticizes the UN in Davos and in the General Assembly by describing it as a socialist institution that deviates from its founding principles, this is also the case suggests Ambassador Rafael Grossicurrent Director General of the Atomic Energy Agency, as Secretary General of the United Nations. On the one hand, it is about boosting multilateralism; On the other hand, he seems to be betting on him.

Werthein’s management, despite all its limitations, had certain limits in its orientation towards the United States and Israel. Despite Ambassador Axel Wahnish’s statements, Werthein has always recognized Palestine, citing Decree 1882/2010, which recognizes it as a free and independent state, as did the late former Chancellor Héctor Timerman.

Werthein is also credited with putting limits on the “culture war” pushed by Nahuel Sotelo and Úrsula Basset in the State Department, which culminated with Basset’s October transfer and his transfer to the Justice Department. Sotelo even lost the power he had built up during Mondino’s government.

The The secretariat of the church service continues to be a problem. There are those who advocate removing her from the State Department. In addition, the activity level is very low. Sotelo returned as a deputy of Buenos Aires, after passing through the prestigious Secretariat of Civilization and Worship without shine, whose leadership he endured almost from the beginning, and, as best he could, the young libertarian Agustín Caulo.