The day after President Trump antagonized world leaders across the globe with his most sweeping set of tariffs yet, he was scheduled to fly to Florida and potentially see the one leader he has called his “favorite president.”
That leader, President Javier Milei of Argentina, had flown overnight to receive an award on Thursday at a right-wing gala at Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Trump was scheduled to also be there late Thursday — Mr. Milei said Mr. Trump would receive an award, too — and Mr. Milei said he hoped the two would meet.
It was Mr. Milei’s 10th trip to the United States in 15 months as president, and nearly every time, he has met Mr. Trump or Elon Musk.
Mr. Trump has posited that he is reshuffling U.S. foreign policy strictly around what is good for the United States.
So what can be puzzling about his elevation of Argentina to the front row of America’s allies — Mr. Milei and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy were the only world leaders onstage at Mr. Trump’s inauguration — is that the chronically distressed South American nation is not particularly important as an economic or geopolitical partner.
Instead, through Mr. Milei, Argentina has offered Mr. Trump something else he appears to crave: adoration.
“I love him because he loves Trump,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Milei in a speech last year. “Anybody that loves me, I like them.”
Mr. Milei has repeatedly and publicly lauded Mr. Trump. He has posted doctored images of them embracing. He has gifted Mr. Musk a custom chain saw. And when Mr. Milei became the first world leader to visit Mr. Trump after the U.S. election, he danced around Mar-a-Lago and told the crowd, “Today the world is a much better place.”
Carlos Kikuchi, a conservative talk radio host in Argentina who helped run Mr. Milei’s campaign, said that, to the Argentine leader, “having such a smooth relationship with Trump and Musk is like touching heaven.”
Mr. Milei has translated his devotion into policy. Weeks after Mr. Trump said he would pull the United States from the World Health Organization, Mr. Milei did the same with Argentina.
After Mr. Trump exited the Paris Climate Agreement, Mr. Milei’s government said it was looking into doing so, too. Mr. Milei fired his first foreign minister because she voted at the United Nations — as Argentina always had — against the U.S. embargo on Cuba.
And after Mr. Trump began criticizing Ukraine — a nation Mr. Milei had steadfastly supported for years — Argentina abstained from a U.N. vote to condemn Russia for its invasion.
Mr. Milei has also become one of the loudest voices in the culture wars, going on a global speaking tour of sorts to attack leftists, feminists and transgender people, and to laud Mr. Trump as the champion who will, in Mr. Milei’s telling, save the West from “woke ideology.”
“Every time we meet with President Trump, he always says, ‘I like this guy,’” Gerardo Werthein, Argentina’s new foreign minister, said this week. “He always says, ‘He is MAGA like me: Make Argentina Great Again.’”
Mr. Trump has praised Mr. Milei’s work in stabilizing Argentina’s economy. Indeed, Mr. Milei has succeeded in lowering inflation, increasing growth and balancing the budget.
Yet, for the United States, Argentina remains an awkward fit as a strategic partner. The nation of 46 million is geographically separated from much of the world and has been stuck for decades in cycles of economic crisis.
The two countries also sell many of the same things: corn, wheat, soybeans, meat, oil. Trade between them fell 8.6 percent to $16.3 billion last year. Argentina ranks 36th globally in buying American exports, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, a research group.
On Wednesday, Argentina, was still hit with the 10 percent minimum levy applied to nearly every country.
But Mr. Milei, who describes himself as a radical libertarian, found a bright side. “Friends will be friends,” he wrote on social media, linking to the Queen song and then sharing posts arguing that Argentina had gained an advantage over countries hit with higher tariffs.
Arguably the biggest potential prize for the United States is Argentina’s large stockpiles of strategic minerals, including lithium, a necessary component of renewable batteries. American and Chinese companies are major players in Argentina’s expanding lithium mines, and Tesla — run by Mr. Musk — buys Argentine lithium for its electric-car batteries.
U.S. diplomats have urged the Milei administration to move away from China, including by restricting China’s access to lithium and rare-earth elements, according to a former senior Milei administration official and senior U.S. diplomat who spoke anonymously to discuss private talks.
Yet Argentina’s trade with China has increased under Mr. Milei, and China remains a larger trading partner than the United States, buying soybeans, silver and beef.
So far, then, it may be Mr. Milei who has gained the most from the new friendship.
Argentina is seeking a $20 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund and, as the fund’s biggest stakeholder, Washington holds the key vote. Argentine officials have said they expect to have Mr. Trump’s support.
Lucía Cholakian Herrera contributed reporting.
