Milei appoints Argentina’s ambassador in US via decree

President Javier Milei has appointed entrepreneur Alejandro Oxenford as Argentina’s new ambassador to the United States by decree.

Oxenford, 56, was chosen for the role last November but the government only sent his formal nomination papers to the Senate a fortnight ago. The upper house has not yet debated them, with ordinary sessions of Congress set to begin only on March 1.

The decision to appoint the businessman by decree was announced by Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni.”

“The President of the Nation has signed the decree appointing Alejandro Oxenford as the new Ambassador of the Argentine Republic to the United States,” Adorni wrote in a post on social media, adding: “Make America & Argentina Great Again.”

Oxenford is not a career ambassador and as his appointment is political, it must be approved by the upper house.

The decree naming him as Argentina’s envoy in Washington was signed on the same day President Milei appointed judges Ariel Lijo and Manuel García-Mansilla to the Supreme Court via the same process. That decision has been fiercely criticised by the opposition and allies of the government. 

Argentina’s Embassy in Washington is the nation’s most important ambassadorial post and Oxenford will be expected to deepen ties with the US President Donald Trump’s administration.

The diplomatic outpost has has been without an ambassador since last October, when Gerardo Werthein stepped down to replace the departing Diana Mondino as Argentina’s foreign minister.

Who is Alejandro Oxenford?

Oxenford is a technology entrepreneur who began his career in the 1990s with the dotcom boom. He has a strong track record as an entrepreneur and was one of the pioneers in the development of Latin American e-commerce platforms.

Oxenford was born and raised in Palermo, Buenos Aires, and studied business administration at the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA) before receiving an MBA from Harvard University. 

A successful businessman and entrepreneur, his first major venture was DeRemate.com, an online auction site that competed fiercely with e-commerce giant MercadoLibre in the early 2000s and was eventually sold to its rival in 2005 for US$40 million.

In 2006, ‘Alec’ (as he is known to his friends) co-founded OLX (Online Exchange), an online classifieds platform that quickly gained popularity in emerging markets such as India and Brazil. In 2014, he launched letgo, a mobile classified ad app in the United States. Both firms went on to be classified as “unicorns” – start-ups whose market valuation exceeds US$1 billion or more.

A keen art collector who previously directed the famed arteBA Foundation and arteBA art fair, Oxenford now takes on the challenge of strengthening trade and diplomatic ties with the world’s biggest superpower. 
 

– TIMES/NA/PERFIL