President Javier Milei fired his Foreign Minister Diana Mondino after Argentina voted to condemn the US embargo on Cuba in the UN Assembly. The logical vote of the far-right ruler, aligned with the United States and Israel, would have been against the resolution and contradicting the country’s historical position. Mondino has a replacement who is predictable in this context: Gerardo Werthein, current Argentine ambassador in Washington DC.
Milei’s foreign policy has been erratic in eleven months of government and the departure of Mondino, a right-wing liberal economist, is paradoxical: it reinforces the conservative turn. The world has been shocked that Argentina did not sign the G20 declaration on gender equality and global warming and that it opposed the United Nations 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. It had never happened that the name “Falklands” appeared in a Foreign Ministry statement; nor that material was distributed with an Argentine map in which the Malvinas Islands were not seen – which the Ministry later assumed were errors.
McCarthyism to diplomats
The vote rejecting the blockade of Cuba broke the glass in the Casa Rosada with the chancellor. The Office of the President announced Mondino’s “resignation” and explained the reasons without a doubt: “Our country is categorically opposed to the Cuban dictatorship.” According to the statement, “Argentina is going through a period of profound changes and this new stage requires that our diplomatic corps reflect in each decision the values of freedom, sovereignty and individual rights that characterize Western democracies.” A kind of McCarthyism will open within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The executive announced that “he will begin an audit of the career staff of the Foreign Ministry, with the aim of identifying promoters of agendas that are enemies of freedom.”
What was new until Mondino’s departure was that the zigzagging Argentine diplomacy had decided to preserve one of its historical positions. In New York, Argentina was one of the 187 countries that rejected the blockade against the island. The overwhelming support had only two countries against it: none other than Israel and the United States, and Moldova abstained.
In the same way that Cuba obtains strong support from the UN year after year to end the blockade, Argentina usually obtains a statement from the Decolonization Committee so that Great Britain opens a dialogue table on the Malvinas. The Cuban government always accompanied Argentina in its claim for the sovereignty of the Malvinas Islands, a flag that Milei and the until now foreign minister minimized in the first months of government.
“Improvisation and inexperience”
“Improvisation and inexperience in foreign policy is mirrored by the same characteristics in economic policy,” says political analyst Atilio Boron, to elDiario.es. “A foreign policy of absolute alignment with the United States and Israel, of breaking with the integration of Latin America, neocolonial, where all sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands is renounced,” maintains the professor at the University of Buenos Aires and the University of Avellaneda. . And Boron adds: “Mondino was in charge of the Foreign Ministry in the series of controversies that occurred with Spain, China, Brazil, Colombia: Milei’s foreign policy was a means to insult leaders he considered ‘left-handed’ and ‘communist’.”
It is worth noting that the crisis unleashed by Milei’s insults against Pedro Sánchez in Madrid last May only recently seems to have subsided. The Spanish government announced this Tuesday the appointment of Joaquín María de Arístegui Laborde as ambassador in Buenos Aires.
A bridge to Trump
The vote against the economic blockade would even have a logic within Milei’s ultraliberal thinking, since La Libertad Avanza (ruling party) should oppose the commercial and economic siege that the United States has imposed on the island since 1962 and that, according to the government Cuban, it cost him between March 2023 and February 2024 a loss of 5,056.8 million dollars.
Prior to the official statement and without a statement from Diana Mondino, Milei left a clear message by sharing a tweet from PRO deputy Sabrina Ajmechet. “Proud of a government that does not bank nor is an accomplice to dictators. “Long live #CubaLibre,” wrote the deputy and UBA professor, a great message for Mondino.
As confirmed first by the presidential spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, and then by the Office of the President, Gerardo Werthein, Argentine ambassador in Washington DC, will be the one to replace Mondino. Such an appointment is in line with ingratiating himself even more with the Northern country. Milei has already positioned herself in favor of Donald Trump in the November 5 elections. “I hope to see you again, next time as president,” the Argentine president told the Republican magnate in February, during the CPAC conference in Washington. Werthein coordinated the six private trips that Milei made to the US to meet with businessmen, including Elon Musk.
The appointed new chancellor is a businessman by family inheritance. As a member of the holding company that bears his last name, he developed businesses in agriculture, energy, real estate, telecommunications, the food industry and health. In parallel, he participated in public management and was head of the Argentine Olympic Committee during the governments of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Mauricio Macri and part of Alberto Fernández. Three years ago he left the Werthein Group and is a shareholder in the newspaper El Cronista and the Uruguayan multimedia El Observador, which now has a radio station with the same name in Buenos Aires, related to officialism.
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