Javier Milei issued a robust defence of Argentina’s burgeoning economic ties with China, saying that his country had little choice but to pursue trade with Beijing – while seeking a deal with the US.
In an interview with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at the World Economic Forum on Thursday, Milei deftly balanced his ideological support for US President Donald Trump’s administration with his economic courtship of China, while making the case for free trade.
“The way we see it, China is a great trading partner,” Milei said, minutes after appearing at a Davos event with Trump as one of the founding members of the US president’s contentious “Board of Peace.” “If you look at China’s weight in the world, you’ll understand I have to trade with China.”
One of Trump’s closest geopolitical allies, Milei has attempted to strike a delicate balance between Washington and Beijing since referring to China’s Communist government as an “assassin” on the campaign trail. He has softened his rhetoric as president, neither embracing nor fully shutting out the Asian giant.
That pragmatic streak was on show during his interview at the Swiss Alpine resort, in which he declined to criticise Trump’s apparent freezing out of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado — whom he called a friend — while also avoiding the chance to find fault with Argentina’s larger neighbour Brazil under leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Asked about Brazil’s elections in October, when the leader known universally as Lula is pursuing a record fourth term, Milei said the two countries have an “adult relationship.”
“This isn’t an ideological contest of academic papers,” he said. “In the middle are the lives of millions of human beings.”
Brazil is also Argentina’s largest trading partner, followed by China. Argentine exports to China rose 62 percent in 2025 from a year prior, far faster than the 27 percent increase in shipments to the US over the same period.
Milei has pursued a free-trade deal with the US since Trump returned to the White House, and said that he would have good news on the pact “very soon.”
Unlike his US ally, the libertarian leader has fashioned himself as a strident advocate of free trade. He vowed to do everything he could to remove the barriers to Argentina’s protectionist economy, and touted a recently-signed free trade pact between the 27-country EU and Mercosur, the South American bloc of which his nation is a member.
“My plan is to open myself up to the European Union, to open myself up to the United States and to open myself up to China,” Milei said. “I want an open economy.”
Pressed on Trump’s actions in Venezuela, Milei offered a full-throated defense of the removal of Nicolás Maduro while maintaining US backing for the authoritarian leader’s deputy, Delcy Rodríguez.
“In Venezuela, believing that there is another possibility to manage the stabilisation process is truly not understanding the limits of reality,” said Milei. “So, from my point of view, the work that the United States is doing is excellent.”
Still, the self-styled wildman of Argentine politics couldn’t resist a dig at his leftist rival, Lula. Asked if he’d name one of his famous dogs after the Brazilian leader, he said that they carry the names of free-market economists.
“I would never give them the name of someone on the left,” Milei said. “I love my dogs too much to insult them.”
by Manuela Tobias, Bloomberg
Comments