BUENOS AIRES – The usual suspects abstained on a seemingly non-controversial issue United Nations Resolution which denounced violence against women and girls on Thursday – Iran, Russia, North Korea.

But the country that cast the only vote against the non-binding resolution, drawn up by France and the Netherlands, took the world by surprise. It was Argentina, long considered one of the most progressive countries in Latin America.

Setting off an avalanche of criticism across the political spectrum on Friday, Buenos Aires’ “no” vote marked the latest in a series of dramatic changes in foreign policy under President Javier Milei, the most right-wing leader in Argentina’s 41 years of democracy.

It comes just days after Milei, an outspoken climate change skeptic, he suddenly called Argentina’s negotiators home from the UN climate summit in BakuAzerbaijan, raising concerns that the radical economist might try to emulate the former US President Donald Trump in Argentina’s complete withdrawal from The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

Not only did Milei transform Argentina’s foreign policy according to the United States and Israelhis government has also taken marginal positions on the global stage that fly in the face of the liberal, rules-based international order.

“It’s a big break with Argentina’s standard foreign policy, which has long been geared toward making Argentina an integrated part of the Global South,” said Richard Sanders, a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Advanced International Studies and former official of the State Department within the State Department. region. “It is certainly a significant change in the way Argentina relates itself internationally.”

Argentina’s vote at the UN on Thursday recalled a similar clash last month, when Argentina became the sole member of all Group of 20 nations to sign a declaration that adopts language about gender equality.

“Argentina is voting alone, against the rest of humanity,” former president Mauricio Macri’s conservative party, an ally of Milea’s government, wrote on the X social media platform on Friday.

Another centrist party, Unión Cívica Radical, joined the chorus of local condemnation.

“Fighting imaginary cultural battles, we end up being isolated from the world,” said Senator Martín Lousteau, president of the centrist party.

Lousteau denounced Argentina’s UN vote against ending gender-based violence as a “disgrace”. Senior official Guillermo Francos defended the decision, saying “neither commitments nor treaties will solve the problem of gender-based violence.”

Nearly a year into his presidency, the former Argentine TV pundit remains erratic and idiosyncratic in the global spotlight, in striking resemblance to Trump. Milei became the first foreign leader since the US election to meet with Trumpalbeit informally, late Thursday at the president-elect’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

In a congratulatory phone call with Trump earlier this week, Mia’s spokesman reported that Trump told the Argentine leader, “You’re my favorite president.” Trump has not confirmed the claim.

The Argentine presidency proudly released a stream of photos from Mar-a-Lago on Friday, showing Milei in a sharp suit, beaming alongside Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk, with whom Milei has also been seen . cultivated a bromance over their shared disdain for “wokeness”, gender issues and socialism.

In November 2023, year angry Argentinean electorate fed up with skyrocketing inflation, debt defaults and bank runs have given the foreigner a broad mandate to overhaul Argentina’s crisis-hit economy.

But with Mile’s libertarian crusade came a series of cultural battles – both at home where the president eliminated Argentina’s women and environment ministries and abandoned the national anti-discrimination institute, as well as abroad, where Milei sought to fashion himself as a far-right icon, raising the hackles of key allies like Braziland Spain.

“Milei made it to the presidency based on his clearly expressed libertarian views, it was all about the economy,” Sanders said. “But these other views are nothing he has hidden.”

Tensions over the culture war in Mile have escalated this month. When Argentina voted at the UN to end the US economic embargo against Cuba on October 30, the Mercy the then foreign minister Diana Mondino fired her over what he called an “unforgivable mistake” and quickly replaced her with Gerardo Werthein, a wealthy businessman who had been Buenos Aires’ ambassador to the US.

This weekend, Milei and Werthein plan to meet again with Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida.

Experts say Milei hopes to collect his friendship with Trump to help crisis-hit Argentina secure a much-needed cash infusion from International Monetary Fundto which Argentina owes more than 44 billion dollars. The US is the fund’s largest shareholder.

In recent weeks, Milei’s shock dismissal of Argentina’s top diplomat – a polite political interpreter who he frequently worked to repair diplomatic relations strained by Mile’s profanity-laden battles with traditional allies—sent shivers through Argentina’s diplomatic ranks.

Milei has vowed to purge his foreign ministry of so-called “traitors to the country” who deviated from his position, which includes rejection of the “Pact for the Future” adopted by the UN in September, which promotes climate action, empowering women and regulating artificial intelligence.

Local media have reported the forced resignations of at least seven diplomats in recent weeks who were perceived to be critical of the president. Trump-like attacks on the UN’s collective philosophy. Milei accuses such multilateral forums of restricting the freedom of members.

Argentina’s leftist Peronist movement – which has dominated the country’s politics for decades – simmered on Friday, with lawmakers stunned by what they saw as the unraveling of hard-won social gains such as The revolutionary legalization of abortion in Argentina in 2020 and recent efforts to reduce fossil fuels.

“For you, freedom is violence,” Mayra Mendoza, a prominent Peronist politician, said to Milei on Friday.

The libertarian called abortion “murder”, climate change a “socialist lie” and the UN a “multi-tentacled leviathan”.

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DeBre reported from Lima, Peru