Argentine President Javier Milei’s Sept. 22 speech before the UN General Assembly was, at the very least, an embarrassment which began with a violent attack on the UN itself as a “useless organization which only serves to feed a fatally arrogant caste of parasites disguised as well-intentioned bureaucrats.” That theme was continued throughout as he blamed the international organization for failing to uphold every commitment it made to uphold international law and defend collective security, instead allowing “chaos, violence and international terrorism” to run rampant and “remaining silent in the face of Islamic terrorism.” Also, “it always voted against Israel,” which Milei considers Argentina’s closest ally along with the U.S.
If Milei thought his trip to the UN would be a success, he discovered otherwise. Despite the frenzied efforts of his Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno, he couldn’t get his hoped-for meeting with Donald Trump, which probably wasn’t even on the White House agenda. His meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio was relegated to a hallway at the UN.
He accused the UN of trying to control people’s lives, recommending instead the Austrian School’s Von Mises and Adam Smith’s imperial views on economic policy and freedom. He blamed the UN for failing to uphold resolutions related to Argentina’s disputed sovereignty claim over the Malvinas Islands, claiming this allowed the U.K. to illegally exploit the islands’ offshore natural resources. In fact, the bulk of Milei’s address was dedicated to the Malvinas issue, one he’s ignored for three years of his presidency but recently took up when he thought Donald Trump was about to revise the U.S. stance on it in Argentina’s favor. Trump did no such review, but with his reelection chances for 2027 looking grim, Milei embraced the Malvinas cause with great fervor but only convinced Argentines this was an electoral ploy.
The man who denies Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza accused the UN of committing genocide during the Covid-19 pandemic, working with the World Health Organization (WHO) and others to “carry out an experiment of global social control disguised as science” by terrorizing people and convincing them they had to stay at home to protect themselves, causing irreparable harm. Milei also spoke enthusiastically on the need to have unbridled development of Artificial Intelligence, with no controls or efforts to restrict it. AI “can transform our economies, our medicine, our education and even our way of governing,” he said, and while this requires “prudence, prudence doesn’t mean fear.” There can be no automatic “obedience … or instilling fear and promoting the control of the State” which, he said, is an obstacle to all real economic development.
