President Alberto Fernández of Argentina was enthusiastic today as he announced that his country would join the BRICS alliance, currently made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
“We have taken a new step to consolidate a fraternal Argentina that is open to the world. We want to be protagonists of a shared destiny with a bloc that represents more than 40 percent of the world’s population,” the center-left president said.
The news allowed Mr. Fernández to change the conversation, as the government came in third in a recent presidential primary and is struggling with massive debt, rising inflation, and even a series of lootings over the last week.
But the opposition was not so adamant about the decision, as center-right presidential hopeful Patricia Bullrich immediately expressed her dissatisfaction
“I want to make this very clear: we have expressed a contrary position to joining BRICS,” Ms. Bullrich said during a meeting at the Council of the Americas, a U.S.-led business organization that includes the promotion of free trade and democracy as its stated missions.
“The president has just committed the country to joining BRICS while the invasion of Ukraine is taking place. Even more, it has joined at the same time as Iran, a country with whom Argentina still has deep open wounds due to anti-Semitic terrorist attacks on our territory,” Ms. Bullrich said, in reference to the 1992 and 1994 bombings of the Israeli embassy and the AMIA Jewish association in Buenos Aires.
The position marks a significant shift from Ms. Bullrich’s party, as former center-right President Mauricio Macri had attended a previous “BRICS+” meeting in South Africa in 2018.
But a lot has changed since then, as the rise of libertarian economist Javier Milei — who finished first in the country’s presidential primary last week — has forced Mr. Macri and Ms. Bullrich to take strong stances in order to compete for Mr. Milei’s voters.
Indeed, other members of their party, such as Buenos Aires city mayoral candidate Jorge Macri — cousin of the former president — said the news of joining BRICS was “good, but insufficient,” in what appeared to be an uncoordinated party response to the latest developments.
Mr. Milei himself has not yet commented on the matter, but his voice is now the most awaited in the country on almost every issue following his primary victory, which made him the favorite to become Argentina’s next president.
More: Listen to the latest episode of our Explaining Brazil podcast, breaking down this week’s BRICS summit and where the bloc goes from here.
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