Argentina Exits UN Climate Summit One Day Ahead of President Javier Milei’s Visit to Mar-a-Lago 

Tension and anxiety have loomed over the summit since Trump’s election win.

AP/Jose Luis Magana
Argentina's president, Javier Milei, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference, at the National Harbor February 24, 2024. AP/Jose Luis Magana

Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, has withdrawn his country’s delegates from the United Nations COP29 Summit on climate science one day ahead of a planned two-day visit to America that may include a stopover at President-elect Trump’s Mar-a-lago.

More than 80 Argentine representatives currently at Baku, Azerbaijan for the summit were ordered to leave just three days after arriving for the two-week meeting, according to the Guardian.

“It’s true. We have instructions from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to no longer participate. That’s all I can tell you,” Argentina’s undersecretary for the environment, Ana Lamas, said to the UK-based newspaper.

It was not immediately clear if Argentina would also withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change, in which the European Union and 194 countries — including America — committed to reduce emissions.

Tension and anxiety have loomed over the summit since Trump’s election win. During his campaign, he vowed to pull America out of the Paris Agreement and said he intends to ramp up oil and gas production. Trump already pulled America out of the global accords during his first time in the White House in 2017.

Since Mr. Milei’s administration assumed power, he has embarked on an ambitious plan to reduce government redundancies and inflation. Mr. Milei has closed 13 government ministries and laid off nearly 10 percent of all federal employees in Argentina.

The cuts have yielded positive financial results for the country, which saw its first budget surplus in more than a decade. Monthly inflation rate has dropped down to 3.5 percent in September from a staggering 26 percent when he took office.

The libertarian Mr. Milei, who assumed office in December, has called climate change a “socialist lie” and has been one of Trump’s strongest advocates in Latin America.  The populist leader has said he views them as “the two most relevant politicians on the planet.”

In an attempt to curry favor with the incoming White House administration, Mr. Milei took to TikTok to congratulate Trump on his victory.

“I congratulate President-elect Donald Trump for the great victory in the elections held yesterday,” Mr. Milei said in the video. “You know you can count on Argentina to make America great again.”

A week later, Mr. Milei received a call from Trump in which the president-elect told him, “You are my favorite president,” according to a post on X by his spokesman, Manuel Adorni.

The Argentinian leader was invited by Trump to his Florida residence this week and is expected to meet with Elon Musk as well, according to the Independent.


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