Brazil in wait-and-see mode after Milei win, says finance minister

Javier Milei greets supporters on November 19. Photo: EFE/Folhapress

Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad on Monday wished Argentina’s President-elect Javier Milei luck. Mr. Milei defeated Sergio Massa, Argentina’s economy minister, by a resounding margin of 56-44 percent, handing Peronism its biggest political defeat in some 40 years.

The Brazilian government has been anything but neutral on Argentina’s recent elections. In 2019, then-President Jair Bolsonaro explicitly supported the re-election bid of right-wing Mauricio Macri, who lost to center-left candidate Alberto Fernández.

While in office, Messrs. Bolsonaro and Fernández traded barbs several times, and bilateral relations between the two important partners remained tepid.

Four years later, Brazil’s center-left Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration made no secret of its preference for Mr. Massa.

In September, Mr. Haddad said the possibility of a Milei victory was “very worrying.” Last week, Lula said Argentinians should elect a president who respects democracy and the country’s commitment to Mercosur.

Mr. Milei has defended pulling Argentina out of Mercosur (a trade alliance that also includes Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay) — he now claims to be willing to make Mercosur more efficient. During the campaign, Argentina’s president-elect also vowed not to meet with Lula — whom he called a “communist” and a “crook.”

With Mr. Milei’s victory now a fait accompli, Brazil’s finance minister is calling for a wait-and-see approach. Mr. Milei will take office on December 10.

“President Lula has shown his appreciation for democracy, celebrating the fact that our continent has to strengthen democracy. And we must wait for the developments [of the political situation in Argentina]. At this point, there is not much to comment on. We have to wait,” Mr. Haddad told reporters on Sunday.

Not everyone in the Brazilian government is in the mood to mend fences. Paulo Pimenta, the government’s press secretary, said Lula should not speak to Mr. Milei before receiving an apology from the libertarian economist. “It is up to him, as president-elect, to make the gesture of calling to apologize. After that, I would think about the possibility of dialogue,” Mr. Pimenta told reporters.

On Sunday, the Brazilian president commented on the Argentinian election without mentioning Mr. Milei by name.

“My congratulations to the Argentinian institutions for conducting the electoral process and to the Argentinian people who participated in the election day in an orderly and peaceful manner. I wish the new government good luck and success,” he said on social media.