Argentine president drops pro-Trump lobbyist

Argentine President Javier Milei appears to have dropped his unofficial ambassador to MAGA America.

Miami-based lobbyist Damian Merlo worked as an adviser to Milei’s campaign late last year, during which time he helped arrange an interview between the soon-to-be leader and conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson that streamed on X in September. Milei was then commanding global attention for his right-wing populist promises to smash his country’s central bank and fire much of its government bureaucracy.

But as Milei attempts to navigate complex domestic and international politics — which involve working with the Biden administration in Washington — he’s let his contract with Merlo expire, according to public filings.

Merlo is a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, and posted a photo of himself wearing a “Let’s Go Brandon” T-shirt just before the 2022 midterms. And Milei heaped praise on Trump during the Carlson interview, which garnered headlines across Argentina. The interview “infinitely pissed off the Biden people,” a former senior U.S. official told Semafor, including the U.S. ambassador to Argentina, Marc Stanley. Milei and Stanley met in September, after the Carlson interview, and Milei eventually didn’t renew his contract with Merlo.

Merlo declined to comment. Neither a Milei spokesperson nor the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires returned requests for comment.

Merlo, a managing partner at Latin America Advisory Group, appears to have acted as a go-between for Milei and Washington conservatives prior to his presidency. The Washington Post reported last year Merlo connected Milei officials with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla.

A Semafor review of Merlo’s recent Foreign Agent Registration Act filings indicate that his pro-bono contract with Milei that started in September wasn’t renewed after Dec. 10, the date of Milei’s inauguration. Merlo had previously told Argentine newspaper La Nacion he expected to sign Milei as a client if he won the presidency.

Milei is not the only Latin American populist connected to Merlo. The lobbyist is currently a prominent adviser to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, the self-described “cool dictator” who made bitcoin an official national currency and has been widely accused of committing human rights abuses as part of an aggressive crackdown on crime. Merlo has accompanied Bukele to the Heritage Foundation as well as the UN General Assembly where the Salvadoran leader met Trump in 2019.

“Merlo, who was a key player in those meetings, moves with ease in the corridors of Washington, especially in the GOP,” the Central American newspaper El Faro reported in early 2021.

Milei’s decision to ditch Merlo — at least for the time being — appears to be a small but telling example of how the Argentine president has tried to cultivate a strong relationship with the Biden administration, and why it doesn’t necessarily make sense to lump him in with other right-wing populists who have more eagerly embraced a global MAGA movement.

“The fact that Damian Merlo was registered as his lobbyist, and then was cut out of the lobbying process by Milei is indicative that he didn’t want to get too far in bed with that crowd,” Douglas Farah, president of national security firm IBI Consultants and an ex-Washington Post reporter who has closely tracked US lobbying in the region, told Semafor. “I think that’s indicative of Milei not being a sort of typical MAGA politician.”

Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro was personally and politically close with Trump, for instance, and went so far as to question the legitimacy of Biden’s 2020 win shortly before their first meeting.

Milei, in comparison, has demonstrated a fervent desire to push Argentina closer to the U.S., regardless of a Democratic administration controlling the White House. Last week, he flew nearly 2,000 miles impromptu to Ushuaia, Argentina’s southernmost city, to meet with US Southern Command chief Gen. Laura Richardson. The provincial governor had refused to host Richardson in protest of continued American military exercises with the United Kingdom near the Falkland Islands, the site of a brief war between the U.K. and Argentina that ended with a crushing Argentine defeat in 1982.

At Ushuaia, Milei reiterated his vow to shore up ties with the US to counter Chinese influence while thanking the Biden administration for continued support.

“He’s expressed a strong willingness to align Argentina with the United States on issues like China and Ukraine, on virtually everything,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who met with Milei one-on-one in February, told Semafor.

• Milei’s aggressive drive to shrink the Argentine state is popping up on the 2024 campaign trail. Montana GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy said on a conservative podcast he wanted to “vaporize” federal agencies similar to Milei. The Argentine leader recently announced he plans to fire 70,000 government workers in the coming months.
• Argentine journalist Uki Goñi recently argued Milei is more comparable to other Latin American populists than Trump. “Although he embraces some elements of the Trump populism flowing from North to South America — including the “Don’t tread on me” Gadsden flags he likes to pose with — Mr. Milei is more archetypal South American caudillo, or strongman, than Trump aspirer,” he wrote in a New York Times essay.