BUENOS AIRES — To Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Javier Milei is a “cowardly bug,” “fascist trash” and an “ugly, stupid SOB.” To Mr. Milei, Argentina’s president, the socialist strongman in Caracas is the political gift that keeps on giving.
It’s a continent-spanning ideological grudge match that shows little sign of ending soon. And Mr. Maduro’s refusal to relinquish power after his apparent defeat in last year’s presidential election, which he is expected to cement in a contested inauguration ceremony on Friday, means that Mr. Milei’s favorite villain likely will remain on the political stage for years to come.
But while Venezuela’s descent into a full-fledged authoritarianism lets Mr. Milei, a self-styled libertarian populist, highlight what he denounces as “cancerous” socialism, his strong support for the embattled Venezuelan opposition, his close ties to President-elect Donald Trump, and his firmness amid Caracas’s recent provocations still make him an uncomfortable thorn in Mr. Maduro’s side.
The staunchly capitalist Mr. Milei has purposefully “positioned himself as the polar opposite of Mr. Maduro,” who — at least on paper — still champions his predecessor Hugo Chavez’s socialist “Bolivarian revolution,” political scientist Tomas Mugica noted.
“Milei is someone who understands that foreign policy as part of a culture war,” said Mr. Mugica, who teaches international relations at Buenos Aires’ Catholic University of Argentina. “And in this spirit, he sees Venezuela as a kind of ’anti-model.’”
The Argentine leader on Saturday made a point of welcoming opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez as Venezuela’s “president-elect,” appearing alongside him on the symbolically charged balcony of the presidential Casa Rosada.
Mr. Gonzalez, whom both Buenos Aires and Washington consider the real winner of the July 28 vote, was feted in the historic Plaza de Mayo by a crowd of thousands of expatriates — part of the estimated 8 million Venezuelans who have fled the country since Mr. Maduro took power in 2013.
“What President Milei has done — to recognize him and to meet him, and to have the [expat] community in the Plaza de Mayo — I believe is a milestone,” said Vincenzo Pensa, who helps lead the Association of Venezuelans in the Argentine Republic.
There are signs the Venezuelan regime is on edge as Mr. Maduro prepares to take the oath for a third six-year term in office, with opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, a key ally of Mr. Gonzalez emerging from months of hiding Thursday only to be immediately arrested after calling for mass demonstrations to prevent the swearing-in ceremony from happening.
Riot police were out in force in Caracas, the Associated Press reported Thursday in a bid to intimidate would-be demonstrators. The streets of the Venezuelan capital were emptied as schools, businesses and government agencies shuttered fearing violence, the AP reported.
“They wanted us to fight each other, but Venezuela is united, we are not afraid,” Ms. Machado reportedly shouted to a few hundred protesters from atop a truck in the capital moments before her arrest.
For his part, Mr. Gonzalez has been attempting to rally regional support against the Maduro government, following a visit with President Biden in Washington earlier this week. On stops in Panama and the Dominican Republic the past two days, the opposition leader — who fled to Spain in the wake of the contested election results last summer — claimed another diplomatic victory when leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced he would not attend Friday’s inauguration festivities in Venezuela.
“We can’t recognize elections that were not free,” Mr. Petro wrote on the social media platform X on Wednesday.
Standing out
Mr. Milei’s explicit embrace of Mr. Gonzalez, a former diplomat making his first run for elective office, sets him apart from the leaders of other regional leaders, including Brazil and Mexico, who, though they have cast doubt on Mr. Maduro’s victory and will not attend his inauguration, have stopped short of rolling out the red carpet for his would-be successor.
Mr. Gonzalez’s visit, meanwhile, culminated a months’ long crescendo of tensions between Buenos Aires and Caracas that began when — four months into Mr. Milei’s presidency — six Venezuelan opposition leaders were granted political asylum at Argentina’s embassy in the Venezuelan capital.
The mission has since been besieged by repeated power outages and constant patrols by heavily armed militia, a situation that persists even after Brazil stepped in as a protecting power when Mr. Milei cut diplomatic relations with the Maduro regime in the wake of last summer’s apparent electoral fraud.
Tensions were further inflamed in early December when authorities in the western state of Tachira arrested Nahuel Gallo, a corporal in Argentina’s National Gendarmerie who had entered Venezuela on a private trip to visit his wife and young daughter.
Unable to provide consular assistance or even ascertain Mr. Gallo’s condition and whereabouts, the Argentine government in January accused Mr. Maduro of “arbitrary detention and forced disappearance,” pressing charges against his prosecutor general, Tarek William Saab, before the International Criminal Court.
Mr. Maduro, for his part, countered this week by claiming the policeman had entered Venezuela with orders to kill his vice president, Delcy Rodriguez. On Wednesday, he announced the capture of seven additional foreigners, including two Americans, whom he accused of a conspiracy to overthrow his regime.
In a tersely worded communique, Argentina’s Foreign Ministry said it “categorically rejects dictator Nicolas Maduro’s false and unfounded accusations,” while the State Department voiced its concerns over arrests “without justification or due process.”
Attempts to up the ante with more provocations — which include Mr. Saab’s colorful request for Interpol to detain Mr. Milei over the 2022 seizure of a Venezuelan cargo plane — in truth point to the regime’s increasing weakness, diplomat Milos Alcalay noted.
“It’s the anxiety of a government that gets everything wrong. It’s like a boomerang,” said Mr. Alcalay, who once served as Mr. Chavez’s ambassador to the United Nations. “They have to throw the hard-liners something, like in Roman times: bread and circus.”
But amid his “national and international isolation,” Mr. Maduro is nevertheless finding it harder and harder to hide the loss of his electoral base, Mr. Alcalay added.
“[The opposition’s] followers aren’t Martians,” he said. “They are the same ones who voted for Chavez.”
Mr. Milei, meanwhile, should be applauded for his outspokenness on the Venezuelan regime’s shortcomings and for his solidarity with the regime’s victims, the former ambassador said. But Mr. Gonzalez — whose visit he insisted was to the country, not just its president — nimbly avoided being used as a political trump card, he added.
Still, what may be good politics for Mr. Milei can turn into a practical nightmare for Venezuelan nationals here who, with Venezuela’s embassy in Buenos Aires shuttered, now find their closest consulate in La Paz, Bolivia, some 1,400 miles from the Argentine capital.
“To feel that you don’t have the ability to take care of formalities is more and more frightening,” Mr. Pensa noted. “All we have left now is Bolivia and Brazil. That’s the greatest worry.”
Given that Venezuela is not a major creditor or trading partner, though, the political benefits of further antagonizing Mr. Maduro likely outweigh any risks for Mr. Milei, Mr. Mugica noted.
And come Jan. 20 and Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the Argentine president will find himself in perfect harmony with the White House - and the State Department, he predicted.
“Everything indicates that Trump will take a more hawkish position than Biden,” Mr. Mugica said. And “people like [Secretary of State nominee Sen.] Marco Rubio will fully agree with Milei’s policy toward Venezuela.”