Milei reportedly ‘not interested’ in meeting Mercosur peers

President Javier Milei had yet to confirm any bilateral meetings with the other heads of state set to attend Thursday’s Mercosur summit in Buenos Aires, which the La  Libertad Avanza leader will host.

In a shocking admission, a government source told a group of reporters at the Casa Rosada on Wednesday that the President is “not interested” in arranging meetings with his regional counterparts.

That said, the sources did not rule out the possibility of Milei sitting down with the Mercosur leader closest to him ideologically: Paraguay President Santiago Peña. 

Since taking office, Milei has welcomed the Paraguayan leader to the Casa Rosada on several occasions and maintains a more fluid level of dialogue with him than with others in the bloc.

“Bilateral meetings with the Mercosur leaders? I don’t think so, he’s not interested,” said a source with an office in the Casa Rosada, speaking to a group of reporters who asked about Milei’s agenda during the summit.

The presidents’ meeting of the Mercosur summit will take place on Thursday, during which Argentina will hand over the rotating pro-tempore presidency of the bloc to Brazil.

While Milei does not share any ideological ground with the leaders of the Mercosur's two other permanent members, Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Uruguay’s Yamandú Orsi, the admission is not in keeping with diplomatic norms. 

At last December’s Mercosur Summit, Lula notably pulled out of the group photo with other presidents after Milei assumed the bloc’s rotating presidency. It was seen as a kind of “response” from the Brazilian leader, after Milei had skipped the “family photo” at the G20 Leaders Summit in Rio de Janeiro just two weeks earlier.

A similar situation exists with the two other leaders who are set to attend the summit in Buenos Aires – Chile’s Gabriel Boric and Bolivia’s Luis Arce. Both are seen as leftists and have previously clashed with Milei in public statements via the media.

– TIMES/NA