Argentina opposition questions Milei’s use of public funds to pay for trips abroad

Even before he landed in Spain, before he opened his mouth and triggered a spat with the Spanish government, Javier Milei’s trip was already involved in controversy back home in Argentina. Since taking office over five months ago, the president has made six trips abroad, but in most of them he did not develop a state agenda or hold meetings with national authorities; instead, he participated in activities with more ties to his own personal interests than to national ones. Opposition leaders are questioning the fact that, while the president proclaims that “there is no money” and implements severe cuts to public spending — with the chainsaw as an emblem — Milei and his entourage are using the presidential plane and spending public funds to go on what they say amounts to publicity tours around the world.

Milei’s visit to Madrid last weekend had been confirmed by the Argentine president on March 29, when he announced on his social media accounts that he would participate in a far-right political summit in Madrid hosted by Spain’s ultranationalist party Vox, whose leader Santiago Abascal was described by Milei as his “dear friend.” After the first questions began to emerge regarding the private nature of the trip, the government responded that Milei would have an official agenda and that he would be meeting with business leaders in Spain. It was a full 45 days after the trip was announced that the meeting and its participants were confirmed.

In the president’s first three trips abroad, the government reported having spent a total of 168 million pesos (about $168,000 at the current exchange rate). There is still no official data on the last three trips. The opposition group Hacemos Coalión Federal has requested information from the government regarding Milei’s trips to the United States, Switzerland, Israel, Italy and Spain. This group has asked for an account of itineraries, activities, costs and the origin of the funds that were used to cover these expenses. “We want to know if these were [official] state visits or trips with a private agenda. From what’s been posted on social media and the spokesperson’s statements, it would seem that in general these were trips of a private nature,” said the lawmaker Óscar Agost Carreño, one of the signatories of the request for information. Meanwhile the Left Front lawmaker Gabriel Solano has filed a complaint in court against Milei “for using public funds and property, including the presidential plane, to travel to Spain in order to participate in Vox’s party activities. The cost to the State will exceed $500,000.”

In his five months and 10 days as president, Milei has made five visits to different parts of Argentina, in addition to those made abroad. In January he went to Switzerland to participate in the Davos Forum. In February he traveled to Israel, Italy and the Vatican, where he did maintain state activities. At the end of the same month, Milei made his first visit to the United States: he met with another icon of the global right, former president Donald Trump, and later spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He traveled to the United States again in April, to be distinguished as an “international ambassador of light” by the Jewish organization Chabad Lubavitch and to meet with Elon Musk. He would meet the millionaire of South African origin again at the beginning of May, on his third visit to the United States. On that occasion, he also spoke to business leaders, bankers and representatives of investment funds at the Global Conference of the Milken Institute.

Criticism of the waste of public funds has hit a sensitive spot for the government. Milei built a large part of his victory on the basis of attacking the privileges of the “political caste” and he is now being accused of engaging in the same behavior that he previously reviled. “They are not private trips,” defended the presidential spokesperson, Manuel Adorni. “We do not make any self-criticism in terms of expenses because I can assure you that, if there is an austere government that spends the bare minimum, it is this one,” he insisted last week.

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