Javier Milei is torn between the West and China

Javier Milei pledged to ‘make Argentina great again’ when he took to the stage in February at the CPAC meeting of right-wing thinkers in the United States. The Argentine president is a self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist who, like Donald Trump, rose to prominence promising to deliver shockwaves to his country. The first six months of Milei’s presidential term have been notable for the sudden domestic reforms he has enacted – cutting government ministries, devaluing the peso and slashing subsidies – but he has also found himself at the heart of tensions between the world’s two great powers, America and China. On this, he is acting uncharacteristically carefully.

Milei has already met twice with General Laura Richardson, one of the most senior military figures for the US in the region, and announced the purchase of 24 American-made F-16s from Denmark, a move seen as deepening the growing ties between the US and South America’s second-largest economy. He