President Javier Milei said he is on the same page as his Paraguayan counterpart Santiago Peña on Wednesday, proclaiming that “Argentina and Paraguay will be an example to all South America" in the years to come.
During a brief visit to Asunción, set against a backdrop of a global trade war ignited by US President Donald Trump and the Mercosur trade bloc in crisis, Milei talked up Argentina's ties with Paraguay and said he and Peña shared a common outlook.
“Both President Peña and myself know that there is no other road to prosperity than deregulation and fiscal surplus with the common good arriving via ideas of liberty,” he proclaimed at the end of a meeting at government house in the Paraguayan capital. “Not via the idea of social justice, which is forced redistribution of wealth by collectivists.”
“On this common denominator of values, we are constructing with President Peña a bilateral relationship bringing together our countries which will eventually be transferred to the rest of the region,” stated Milei, adding: “A continent which has suffered too long the onslaughts of populism can thus move forward for once.”
The challenge facing both presidents was “the eternal battle against the omnipresent state and the fiscal deficit via peaceful cooperation and trade with the outside world.”
“There is no extravagant mechanism but the conviction that liberty is the only way possible, enabling me to view with hope a future of collaboration between our nations,” he insisted, speaking with Peña at his side.
Milei said that in recent decades Paraguay “has diligently applied the ideas of economic freedom and as a result hasovercome inflation with non-stop growth for over 20 years, attracting investors and residents from all over the world” while also adding the achievements of his own government against the “social catastrophe of inflation.”
“Evidently they must be doing something right,” was his conclusion on Paraguay at a makeshift press conference which nevertheless excluded questions from the press.
The two presidents then shared a lunch, following which Milei boarded a return flight to Argentina.
Argentina currently holds the pro-tempore presidency of the Mercosur trade bloc and Milei is seeking allies to line up against Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has rejected Trump’s proposed tariffs and strongly questioned the Republican leader. Uruguay, now under the leadership of leftist Yamandú Orsi, is a far from natural ally.
Milei’s visit preceded a meeting of Mercosur foreign ministers, where Trump’s 10-percent tariffs – slapped on all South American countries alike – loomed as a prime issue.
Trump’s last-minute decision to halt the duties for 90 days will give the bloc further breathing room, though any shared position is unlikely. Milei has already indicated that he wants to secure a free-trade deal independently with the United States and has even threatened to take Argentina out of Mercosur if necessary in order to do so.
While Argentina and Paraguay have pending issues regarding the Hidrovía waterway and the Yacyretá hydro-electric dam, Milei sought agreement with Peña regarding the aggressive US tariff policies.
Underlining the extent of his unhappiness, Lula this week described Trump as “a citizen who believes himself entitled to dictate rules to everything in the world.”
Foreign Ministry officials in Brasília, however, indicate that there is room for negotiations with the US government.
– TIMES/NA/PERFIL
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