Colombia expels Argentine diplomats after Milei’s insults to Petro | South America

A diplomatic crisis broke out between Argentina and Colombia. The Government of Bogotá did not like the most recent statements made by the Argentine President, Javier Milei, and announced the expulsion of a group of diplomats from that country who are stationed at the embassy in Colombia.

At issue are the words that Milei used to describe the Colombian President, Gustavo Petro, during an interview with CNN that will only be broadcast in full on Sunday. In one of the segments that has already been broadcast, Milei criticizes the regimes of Venezuela and Cuba, which are at the opposite of his ideological preferences, and says that Colombia led by Petro, a “murderer”, “terrorist” and “communist”, can follow the same path.

The publication of an excerpt from the interview was enough for the Colombian Government to take action. At the end of the day on Wednesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a statement announcing the “expulsion of diplomats from the Argentine embassy in Colombia”. “The Argentine President’s expressions deteriorated the confidence in our action, in addition to offending the dignity of President Petro, who was elected democratically”, added the same note.

The ministry explained that the scope of the decision will be communicated later, implying that, in theory, the expulsion could even include the Argentine ambassador himself, Gustavo Dzugala, which would be an extremely drastic solution. Throughout this Thursday, the Argentine press did not exclude this hypothesis.

The uneasiness between the two South American countries since Milei came to power did not start now. In January, Milei had already called “murderous communist” Petro during an interview, which led the Colombian Government to call its ambassador in Buenos Aires for consultations.

This Thursday, Milei’s spokesman, Manuel Adorni, tried to calm the situation by saying he hoped that “the differences” between the two heads of state would not affect relations between the two countries.

Milei’s thoughtless and impulsive style has degraded Argentina’s image in its neighborhood, especially in a context in which the majority of Latin American countries are governed by left-wing leaders. In the same interview in which he offended Petro, the Argentine President also took aim at his Mexican counterpart, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, calling him “ignorant”.

If relations with Milei are expected to be non-existent with Venezuela or Cuba, given the enormous ideological distance between the respective governments, with countries like Brazil or Chile the atmosphere is icy. Milei never hid his closeness to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and was up until the last minute to invite Lula da Silva to his inauguration – the Brazilian ended up declining. Since taking office, Milei has not yet visited Brazil, one of Argentina’s main commercial and diplomatic partners.

With Chile, with which Argentina shares a long border, relations are no longer close, although without the scale of aggressiveness that punctuates the relationship with Colombia. Milei has also shown enormous opposition to efforts to strengthen regional cooperation mechanisms, such as Mercosur.

Even between Milei and the Uruguayan President, the conservative Luis Lacalle Pou, there seems to be some distance, contrary to what one might expect. Write the La Nation that “the relationship is not so fluid” and that it was recently up to Karina Milei, the President’s sister and general secretary of the presidency, to take a first step towards welcoming the Uruguayan ambassador.