Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Argentina, Cuban-American billionaire Peter Lamelas, provoked a political firestorm in that country with his July 22 remarks during his confirmation hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, baldly proposing to intervene in Argentina’s internal affairs across the board—in electoral, trade, and legal matters. Having met with Argentina’s lunatic President Javier Milei at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion, he promised Milei would consolidate an “unprecedented alliance” with him, including backing him in the upcoming midterm legislative elections. He also announced he’ll visit all 23 provincial governors, who by law are authorized to sign agreements with “external forces,” vowing to convince them to stop trading with China, which he described as a “malign influence” in the region. Everyone knows the Chinese are corrupt, he said, and “my job is to get out into the countryside and weed out corruption.” The Chinese embassy put out an official statement in response to Lamelas’ insulting remarks (see separate report).
Lamelas’ offensive remarks regarding the legal case of former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner sparked particular outrage. He complained she should never have been given house arrest to serve out a six-year jail term in the phony corruption case for which she was convicted in 2022. This was “political favoritism,” he bellowed, and demanded she be brought to justice “that she well deserves” in several other cases, in which she has never been charged. These include the unresolved 2015 death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman and the alleged coverup of Iran’s role in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish social center (AMIA) in Buenos Aires. “God knows if she was involved in [Nisman’s] death,” he intoned.
This blatant interventionism in Argentina is identical to Trump’s demands that Brazil’s judiciary arbitrarily stop the legal proceedings against ex-President Bolsonaro—presumably so he can run in the upcoming presidential elections and defeat President Lula. Call it Trump’s “Greenland Syndrome.”
