What's the formula for a good equation with Donald Trump? Flattery
Donald Trump antagonised world leaders across the globe with his most extensive set of tariffs yet, he was scheduled to fly to Florida and potentially see the one leader he has called his «favourite president».
That leader, President Javier Milei of Argentina, had flown overnight to receive an award Thursday at a right-wing gala at Mar-a-Lago. Trump was scheduled to also be there late Thursday — Milei said Trump would receive an award, too — and Milei said he hoped the two would meet.
It was Milei's 10th trip to the US in 15 months as president, and nearly every time, he has met Trump or Elon Musk. Trump has posited that he is reshuffling US 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 — Milei and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were the only world leaders onstage at Trump's inauguration — is that the chronically distressed South American nation is not particularly important as an economic or geopolitical partner.
Instead, through Milei, Argentina has offered Trump something else he appears to crave: adoration. «I love him because he loves Trump,» Trump said of Milei in a speech last year. «Anybody that loves me, I like them.»
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Milei has repeatedly and publicly lauded Trump. He has posted doctored images of them embracing. He has gifted Musk a custom chain saw. And when Milei became the first world leader to visit Trump after the US 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 Milei's campaign, said that, to the Argentine leader, «having such a smooth
