Argentine President Javier Milei and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: Netanyahu / X
On his third trip to Israel, Milei signed security agreements, sang, and gave speeches accusing Marx of being satanic. Taken together, his activities in West Asia amount to more than just an official visit.
Argentine President Javier Milei made a three-day visit to Israel to mark Independence Day. During his trip, Israeli President Isaac Herzog awarded Milei in Jerusalem with the highest honor his country bestows on a civilian: the Presidential Medal of Honor.
“Your message crossed borders and resonated across generations: a message of morality, of humanity, of aligning one’s moral compass, of recognizing the depth of pain, and of offering comfort,” Herzog told Milei.
Such an “honor” comes as no surprise. Milei has not only publicly expressed his support for Israel in its regional and global conflicts, but has likely become Israel’s most important Western ally after the United States.
The Isaac Agreements
During his recent visit, Milei signed the so-called “Isaac Agreements” alongside his counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, which outline a set of bilateral commitments in the areas of security (including intelligence cooperation), diplomacy, trade, culture, and even education.
The multidimensional agreement also includes a section on technological cooperation, which covers collaboration on artificial intelligence, model development, and the training of specialists. A common stance was also agreed upon for international forums, as well as the promotion of a neoliberal policy of economic openness.
According to Milei, the Isaac Agreements, inspired by the Abraham Agreements (signed in 2020 by Israel and several Arab countries), seek to “unite efforts in the fight against terrorism, anti-Semitism, and drug trafficking, with an open invitation to all nations that share these values and wish to join.”
During his visit, Milei also demonstrated his support for Tel Aviv amid the war against Iran by designating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Quds Force as terrorist organizations. These measures come on top of those already taken, such as his expulsion on April 2 of Iran’s top diplomat, Mohsen Soltani Tehrani, from Argentina.
In addition, Milei has promised to open a direct air route between the two nations, which, he said, he hopes will promote closer relations between them: “Starting in November, the first-ever direct air route between Buenos Aires and Tel Aviv will begin operating, and our nations will be closer than ever, deepening an unbreakable bond between two countries that were there for one another when fate demanded it.”
From singer to speaker
Milei also drew attention at the official ceremony marking Israel’s 78th Independence Day when, in front of the nation’s top officials, he sang Nino Bravo’s song “Libre” alongside several other artists.
In addition, Milei lit one of the 12 torches representing the 12 tribes of Israel. There, Milei reaffirmed his intention to move the Argentine embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, something Argentine diplomacy has historically resisted, despite Israel’s requests.
While asserting that “Argentina and Israel are not only partners, but friendly nations,” Milei, in a clearly theological and mystical tone, stated that the Maccabees taught him the importance of God’s favor: “From them we learned that victory on the battlefield does not come from the number of soldiers, but from the forces that come from heaven,” the president stated, adding categorically: “Light always triumphs over darkness.” This quote has been interpreted as a reference to the current war in which Israel is engaged.
It appears that the Argentine president’s newfound interest in religious matters continued during his trip. Bar-Ilan University awarded him an honorary doctorate. In his keynote address, Milei went so far as to claim that Marxism is a “satanic theory” opposed to “Judeo-Christian values”. Amid applause, Milei claimed that Marx was a “Satanist”, a statement that has been strongly criticized by scholars worldwide, who have emphasized that Marx was an atheist, meaning that Milei’s claims (as someone who served as a professor before entering politics) lack any historical or intellectual rigor.
Finally, Milei visited the Western Wall, where he prayed before heading to Ben Gurion Airport to return to Argentina. Taken as a whole, Milei’s activities in Israel demonstrate not only a clear alignment with Israel’s foreign policy but also an attempt to ideologically justify, in every possible way he can (whether by singing or giving lectures), the supremacy of the geopolitical sector behind which he has positioned the Argentine executive branch.
This political spirit was likely expressed most clearly by the Argentine president himself:
“We will not be able to coexist with certain cultures,” a statement that has sparked controversial reactions in his country over what right-wing libertarian Javier Milei actually meant.
dizzy: Mad Neo-Liberal chainsawist Argentine President Javier ” Israel’s most important Western ally after the United States” Milei meets Benjamin Netanyahu -> Donald Trump ‘reviews’ UK claim to the Falkland Islands.
ARGENTINA’S far-right President Javier Milei has cut more than 63,000 public-sector jobs since coming to power two years ago, it was reported on Monday.
The structural adjustment programme put in place by Mr Milei between December 2023 and December 2025 slashed 63,234 public-sector jobs, according to the Centre for Political Economy of Argentina (Cepa).
A report by the organisation said the cuts of 18.4 per cent amounted to almost 80 jobs lost per day.
Director Heran Letcher described the cuts “as the deepest in recent decades.”
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Mr Milei’s administration has prioritised the reduction of public spending, shrinking the state and the so-called liberalisation of the Argentinian economy.
The president promised to carry out these cuts to secure financial support from the US government and bodies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Observers have warned that the cuts directly affect the operational capacity of the state and the provision of public services, as well as adding to rising unemployment and growing poverty across Argentina.
Demonstrators hold signs during an anti-Trump protest at Plaza de Bolivar on January 7, 2026 in Bogotá, Colombia. (Photo by Andres Rot/Getty Images)
Thousands of people across the country expressed support for their president, Gustavo Petro, who spoke to President Donald Trump ahead of the rallies and struck a diplomatic but defiant tone.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro struck a relatively diplomatic tone Wednesday at a rally in Bogotá, where he spoke about the Trump administration’s threats to launch military strikes against his country—but thousands of people who gathered in the Colombian capital and across the country were happy to say exactly what they thought of US President Donald Trump’s recent attack on neighboring Venezuela and his saber-rattling across Latin America.
“He’s a maniac,” 67-year-old José Silva told the Guardian at a march in the border city of Cúcuta. “The US Congress needs to do something to get him out of the presidency… He’s a thug.”
“Trump is the devil,” another marcher, Janet Chacón, told the outlet.
And demonstrators held English-language signs proclaiming, “Yankees Go Home!” as well as banners reading, “Fuera los yanquis!” or “Out with the Yanks!”
Colombians were rallying after Petro called for a mass mobilization days after Trump ordered a military attack in Venezuela, including a bombing and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Maduro and Flores have pleaded not guilty to narco-terrorism charges in a court in New York City, while Trump and other White House officials have made clear in recent days that their objective in Venezuela is not to stop drug trafficking—a crime in which the country is not significantly involved—but to take control of its oil reserves.
Colombians marched together with Venezuelans in Cúcuta, with one man telling Reuters, “If they kidnap your president, they kidnap the entire homeland.”
Protesters gathered at the Simon Bolivar Bridge in Cucuta, Colombia, to demonstrate against US President Donald Trump, responding to a call by Colombian President Gustavo Petro under the slogan 'Colombia is free and sovereign' pic.twitter.com/y5FIMweCbN
Soon after invading Venezuela, Trump and other officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubiosuggested they could soon attack other Latin Amercian countries and try to overthrow their leaders.
Officials in Cuba’s socialist government, said Rubio, are “in a lot of trouble,” while Trump said the US is “going to have to do something” about drug cartels operating in Mexico.
Regarding Colombia, Trump cited no evidence as he accused the left-wing Petro of “making cocaine and selling it to the United States” and said an invasion of the country “sounds good to me.” Petro has not been linked to the drug trade in Colombia.
Petro has vehemently condemned Trump’s escalation in Latin America in recent months and has accused the president of murder in the Caribbean, where the US has bombed dozens of boats and killed more than 100 people since September, accusing them of drug trafficking without releasing any evidence.
After the Venezuela attack and the threats toward other countries in the region, Petro warned that Trump had awakened a “jaguar,” referring to the opposition of the public in Colombia and across Latin American regarding US imperialism.
After calling on Colombians to take to the streets, Petro spoke to Trump on the phone at the US president’s request and accepted an invitation to the White House. Trump said it was “a great honor” to speak with the Colombian leader.
Petro told protesters in Bogotá that the speech he had planned to give had been “quite harsh.”
“For 34 years, peace has been my priority,” he said. “And I know that peace is found through dialogue. That is why I accept President Trump’s proposal to talk.”
“If there is no dialogue, there is war. The history of Colombia has taught us that,” the president added.
But he also made clear to thousands of supporters, many of whom carried placards with pictures of Petro, that “what happened in Venezuela was, in my opinion, illegal.”
“We cannot lower our guard,” he said. “Words need to be followed by deeds.”
In Cúcuta, a teacher named Marta Jiménez denounced a number of European leaders who have refused to clearly condemn Trump’s invasion of Venezuela’s neighbor, even as legal scholars have said it was a clear violation of the United Nations Charter.
“They are leaving him to fly, free as a bird over every single country, to do whatever he likes,” she said, expressing concern that Trump’s next target “might be Nicaragua, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru—any of them.”
En Colombia, la sociedad salió masivamente en 12 ciudades, para rechazar la injerencia y las amenazas del presidente de EEUU. Se trató de una jornada con mensajes en favor de la unidad de los pueblos de Nuestra América y El Caribe. @teleSURtv@TobarteleSUR@petrogustavopic.twitter.com/0RD4QvjHsu
Protests were also held this week in countries including Argentina and Brazil, with demonstrators expressing solidarity with the rest of Latin America in light of Trump’s threats and attacks.
“The message from the people of Latin America is: ‘Donald Trump, get your hands off Latin America,’” Brazilian Congressman Reimont Otoni said at a rally outside the US consulate in Rio de Janeiro. “Latin America isn’t the [United States’] backyard.”
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Argentine President Javier Milei, Brazilian legislator Eduardo Bolsonaro, and Chilean far-right presidential candidate José Antonio Kast at CPAC Conference in 2022. Photo: Eduardo Bolsonaro / X
The far right in Latin America is angry. Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Argentina’s Javier Milei always look furious, and they always speak loudly and aggressively. Testosterone leaks from their pores, a toxic sweat that has spread across the region. It would be easy to say that this is the impact of Donald Trump’s own brand of neo-fascism, but this is not true. The far right has much deeper pedigrees, linked to the defense of the oligarchical families that have roots in the colonial era across the virreinatos (viceroyalties) from New Spain to Rio de la Plata. Certainly, these far right men and women are inspired by Trump’s aggressiveness and by the entry of Marco Rubio, a furious defender of the far right in Latin America, to the position of US Secretary of State. This inspiration and support are important but not the reason for the return of the far right, an angry tide that has been growing across Latin America.
On the surface, it looks as if the far right has suffered some defeats. Jair Bolsonaro is in prison for a very long time because of his role in the failed coup d’état on January 8, 2023 (inspired by Trump’s own failed coup attempt on January 6, 2021). In the first round of the presidential election in Chile, the candidate of the Communist Party, Jeannette Jara won the most votes and will lead the center-left bloc into the second round (December 14). Despite every attempt to overthrow the government of Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro remains in charge and has mobilized large sections of the population to defend the Bolivarian Revolution against any threats. And, in late October 2025, most of the world’s countries voted for a UN General Assembly resolution that demands an end to the blockade on Cuba. These indicators – from Bolsonaro’s imprisonment to the vote on Cuba – suggest that the far right has not been able to move its agenda in every place and through every channel.
However, beneath the surface, there are indications that Latin America is not seeing the resurgence of what had been called the Pink Tide (after the election of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 1998) but is experiencing the emergence of an angry tide that slowly has begun to sweep the region from Central America down to the Southern Cone.
Elections in South America
The first round of the Chilean presidential election produced a worrying result. While Jara of the Communist Party won 26.85% of an 85.26% turnout, the far right’s José Antonio Kast came in second with 23.92%. Evelyn Matthei of the traditional Right won 12.5%, while the extreme right candidate who was once with Kast and now to his right, Johannes Kaiser, won 14%. It is likely that Jara will pick up some of the votes of the center, but not enough to overcome the advantage of the far right which looks to have at least more than 50% of the voters on its side. The so-called social liberal, Franco Parisi, who came in third, endorsed Kast in 2021 and will likely endorse him again. That means that in Chile, the presidency will be in the hands of a man of the far right whose ancestry is rooted in German Nazism (Kast’s father was a member of the Nazi Party who escaped justice through the intercession of the Vatican) and who believes that the dictatorship in Chile from 1973 to 1990 was on balance a good idea.
North of Chile, in Bolivia, the new president Rodrigo Paz Pereria, son of a former president, beat the far right’s Jorge Tuto Quiroga (a former president) in the second round of the election. This round had no candidate of the left, after the Movement for Socialism governed Bolivia continuously from 2006 to 2025. Paz’s own party has a minority position in the legislature and he will therefore have to align himself with the Quiroga’s Libre coalition and he will likely adopt a pro-US foreign policy and a libertarian economic policy. Peru will have its own election in April, where the former mayor of Lima – Rafael López Aliaga – is expected to win. He rejects the label far right but adopts all the generic policies of the far right (ultra-conservative Catholic, advocate for harsh security measures, and favors a libertarian economic agenda). Iván Cepeda of Colombia is the left’s likely candidate in their presidential election in May 2026, since Colombia does not permit second terms (so President Gustavo Petro cannot run again). Cepeda will face strong opposition from Colombia’s oligarchy which will want to return the country to their rule. It is too early to say who Cepeda will face, but it might be journalist Vicky Dávila, whose far right opposition to Petro is finding traction in unexpected parts of Colombian society. It is likely that by the middle of 2026, most of the states along the western edge of South America (from Chile to Colombia) will be governed by the far right.
Even as Bolsonaro is in prison, his party, the PL (or Liberal Party), is the largest bloc in Brazil’s National Congress. It is likely that Lula will be re-elected to the presidency next year due to his immense personal connection with the electorate. The far right’s candidate – who could be possibly Tarcísio de Freitas, the governor of São Paulo state, or one of the Bolsonaro’s (wife Michelle or son Flavio) – will struggle against him. But the PL will make inroads into the Senate. Their control over the legislature has already tightened the reins on the government (at COP30, Lula’s representative made no proposals to confront the climate catastrophe), and a Senate win will further their control over the country.
Common agenda of the angry tide
The Angry Tide politicians who are making waves have many things in common. Most of them are now in their fifties – Kast (born 1966), Paz (born 1967), Venezuelan politician María Corina Machado (born 1967), and Milei (born 1970). They came of age in the post-dictatorship period in Latin America (the last dictatorship to end was in Chile in 1990). The decade of the 1990s continued the economic stagnation that characterized the 1980s: the Lost Decade (La Década Perdida) that convulsed these countries with low growth rates and with poorly developed comparative advantages forced into globalization. It was in this context that these politicians of the Angry Tide developed their common agenda:
Anti-Communism. The far right in Latin America is shaped by an anti-left agenda that it inherits from the Cold War, which means that its political formations typically endorse the era of US-backed military dictatorships. The ideas of the left, whether from the Cuban Revolution (1959) or from the era of the Pink Tide (after 1998), are anathema to these political forces; these ideas include agrarian reform, state-led finance for industrialization, state sovereignty, and the importance of trade unions for all workers and peasants. The anti-communism of this Angry Tide is rudimentary, mother’s milk to the politicians and used cleverly to turn sections of society against others.
Libertarian Economic policies. The economic ideas of the Angry Tide are shaped by the Chilean “Chicago Boys” (including Kast’s brother Miguel who was the head of General Augusto Pinochet’s Planning Commission, his Minister of Labor, and his head of the Central Bank). They directly take their tradition from the libertarian Austrian School (Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Murray Rothbard as well as Milton Friedman). The ideas were cultivated in well-funded think tanks, such as the Centro de Estudios Macroeconómicos de Argentina (founded in 1978) and the Chilean Centro de Estudios Públicos (founded in 1980). They believe the State should be a force to discipline the workers and citizens, and that the economy must be in the hands of private interests. Milei’s famous antics with a chainsaw illuminate this politics not only of cutting social welfare (the work of neoliberalism) but of destroying the capacity of the State itself.
Culture Wars. Drawing on the wave of anti-gender ideology and anti-migration rhetoric, the Angry Tide has been able to appeal to conservative evangelical Christians and to large sections of the working class that has been disoriented by changes seen to come from above. The far right argues that the violence in working class neighborhoods created by the drug industry is fostered by “liberalism” and that only tough violence (as demonstrated by El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele) can be the solution; for this reason, they want to strengthen the military and police and set aside constitutional limitations on use of force (on October 28, the government of Bolsonaro ally Cláudio Castro in Rio de Janeiro sent in the police who killed at least 121 people in Operation Containment). It helps the far right that it adopted various conspiracy theories about how the “elites” have spread “globalized” ideas to damage and destroy the “culture” of their nations. This is a ludicrous idea coming from far right and traditional right political forces that champion full-scale entry of US corporations into their society and culture, and that have no respect for the histories of struggle of the working class and peasantry to build their own national and regional cultural worlds. But the Angry Tide has been able to construct the idea that they are cultural warriors out to defend their heritage against the malignancies of “globalization”. Part of this culture war is the promotion of the individual entrepreneur as the subject of history and the denigration of the necessity of social reproduction.
It is these three elements (anti-communism, libertarian economic policies, and the culture wars) that brings together the far right across Latin America. It provides them with a robust ideological framework to galvanize sections of the population to believe that they are the saviours of the hemisphere. This Latin American far right is backed by Trump and the international network of the Spanish far right (the Foro Madrid, created in 2020 by Fundación Disenso, the think tank of the far right Vox party). It is heavily funded by the old elite social classes, who have slowly abandoned the traditional Right for these new, aggressive far right parties.
Crisis of the Left
The Left is yet to develop a proper assessment of the emergence of these parties and has not been able to drive an agenda that sparkles with vitality. A deep ideological crisis grips the Left, which cannot properly decide whether to build a united front with the traditional right and with liberals to contest elections or to build a popular front across the working class and peasantry to build social power as a prelude to a proper electoral push. The example of the former strategy (the electoral alliance) comes from Chile, where first the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (Concertación) formed in 1988 to keep out the parties of the dictatorship from power and second the Apruebo Dignidad formed in 2021 that brought Gabriel Boric of the centrist Broad Front to the presidency. But outside Chile, there is little evidence that this strategy works. The latter has become harder as unionization rates have collapsed, and as uberization individualizes the working class to erode working class culture.
It is telling that Bolivia’s former socialist Vice President Álvaro García Linera looked northwards to New York City for inspiration. When Zohran Mamdani won the mayor’s race, García Linera said, “Mamdani’s victory shows that the left must commit to boldness and a new future.” It is hard to disagree with this statement; although, Mamdani’s own proposed agenda is mostly to salvage a worn-out New York infrastructure rather than to advance the city to socialism. García Linera did not mention his own time in Bolivia, when he tried with former president Evo Morales to build a socialist alternative. The left will have to be bold, and it will have to articulate a new future, but it will have to be one that emerges from its own histories of building struggles and building socialism.
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Banners of various G20 leaders are displayed along a Johannesburg freeway, in Johannesburg, South Africa, November 20, 2025
WORLD leaders from the Group of 20 rich and developing economies broke with tradition and adopted a declaration at the start of their summit in South Africa on Saturday despite opposition from the United States.
The US is boycotting the two-day talks in a diplomatic rift with the host country and had put pressure on South Africa not to adopt a leaders’ declaration in the absence of a US delegation, South African officials said.
Vincent Magwenya, the spokesperson for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, said that a leaders’ declaration was adopted unanimously by the other members at the start of the talks in Johannesburg.
Declarations are usually adopted at the end of G20 summits.
The 122-point declaration urged more global action on issues that specifically affect poor countries, like climate-related disasters and sovereign debt levels, and was promoted by the hosts as a victory for the first G20 summit to be held in Africa.
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While President Ramaphosa’s spokesperson said the declaration was unanimous, Argentina said it did not endorse it.
Banners of various G20 leaders are displayed along a Johannesburg freeway, in Johannesburg, South Africa, November 20, 2025