The News
Argentine President Javier Milei will attend US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, Milei’s office confirmed with local media Sunday.
Milei’s attendance — and Trump extending invitations to several other world leaders — breaks decades of tradition for world leaders to skip the presidential inauguration. Foreign ambassadors instead typically represent world governments at US presidential swearing-ins.
According to Argentine newspaper La Nación, Milei — a staunch Trump supporter who attended the president-elect’s Mar-A-Lago victory party after the November election — was initially hesitant of breaking tradition, but changed his mind after Trump called him.
The invitations to other Trump-aligned leaders like Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and China’s Xi Jinping could signal the president-elect’s foreign policy agenda — and his desire for personal relationships with other world leaders.
SIGNALS
Trump team eyes Milei’s massive budget cuts
Javier Milei’s program to cut government spending and tackle inflation has gained popularity among some in the incoming Trump administration, particularly tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has an unofficial job to propose similar cuts to the federal budget. But a Peterson Institute for International Economics analyst warned that Milei’s ambitious programs are tackling “decades of mismanagement of public resources” and “appropriate for Argentina, but for nobody else.” In turn, several of Donald Trump’s key policy proposals — like mass deportations — would require increasing government oversight rather than downsizing, pundits told the BBC.
Meloni seen as bridge between Washington and Brussels
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right stance on immigration has helped her build a strong rapport with Donald Trump. But beyond the two leader’s personal affinities, Italy “will have kind of a monopoly” over the president-elect’s attention while other European powers like France and Germany remain in political gridlock, Italian political scientist Giovanni Orsina told CNN. Meloni is also friends with Elon Musk, and her singular influence will be felt “as long as the Trump-Musk honeymoon lasts at least,” Orsina added. But it is “hard to know” just how much sway Meloni will have on Trump over issues they disagree on, like aid to Ukraine, with Meloni among Kyiv’s biggest champions in Europe, CNN noted.
Inviting Xi shows Trump wants to define presidency with personal diplomacy
Despite Donald Trump targeting China on trade, his invitation to Xi Jinping suggests nonetheless that the president-elect wants to be “seen as some kind of grand statesman” whose foreign policy is guided by “personal diplomacy,” a China expert told the South China Morning Post. Xi is unlikely to accept, but the message to Beijing is that Trump will “cut through all the bureaucracy and make deals and make arrangements,” he added. Trump could seek more face-to-face meetings with Xi to wrap up negotiations on key issues, like stopping the flow of fentanyl-producing chemicals from China to Mexico. Such a deal might then determine how Trump responds to other US-China issues, including the future of Taiwan, SCMP reported.