Argentina renounces Brics membership after change of government

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Javier Milei
New president, new course: Argentina renounces Brics membership

BRICS membership is no longer an option for Argentina’s President Javier Milei

© Aton Chile / Imago Images

The new President of Argentina, Javier Milei, renounces his country’s Brics membership. He would rather turn to the USA and Israel.

Argentina, under its new president Javier Milei, is foregoing membership in the Brics group of states as sought by its previous government. The membership, which was actually supposed to come into force at the turn of the year, is “not viewed as appropriate” by his government, Milei wrote to the heads of state and government of the Brics states on Friday.

At its meeting in August, the Brics group, consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, invited six states as new members on January 1st: In addition to Argentina, these are Ethiopia, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates Emirates.

Argentina withdraws from Brics membership

The right-wing populist ultra-liberal Milei announced several times during the presidential election campaign that he would forego membership in the Brics group. The Brics states see themselves as a counterweight to Western states.

In his letter quoted by the Argentine media, Milei, who has been in office since mid-December, emphasized that his government’s foreign policy approach differs “in many respects from that of the previous government.” Therefore, some decisions would be revised, including that on Argentina’s active participation in the Brics group.

In the past, Milei had expressed himself in extremely harsh terms about Brics states such as China and Argentina’s neighboring country Brazil. Among other things, he described Brazilian President Lula as a “corrupt communist.”

Most recently, he made it clear that he viewed the USA and Israel in particular as his natural strategic partners in foreign policy.

lhi
AFP

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