Milei’s letter is a “good gesture”, but insufficient for dialogue with Lula

President Javier Milei sent a letter to his Brazilian counterpart through Argentine Chancellor Diana Mondino, who met, this week, with Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, at Itamaraty. It was the second letter from Milei to Lula delivered by Mondino to the Chancellor of Brazil. The first was at the meeting in Brasília, before Milei’s inauguration, last December and which was attended by former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Milei’s second letter was interpreted by Itamaraty as a positive “gesture”, but still insufficient for a telephone conversation or face-to-face meeting to be held between the two presidents. Behind the scenes of power, in Brasília, they still clearly remember Milei’s insults against Lula – “unnecessary” and “outside the stage”, said close observers of the bilateral relationship.

Milei called Lula a “communist”, “corrupt” and a “poisoned socialist”. Lula, in turn, had signaled his preference for the election of the former Minister of Economy, the Peronist Sergio Massa.

The second letter was not Milei’s only gesture in recent days. In the meeting with businessman Elon Musk, at the Tesla factory, in Austin, Texas, in the United States, the Argentine president offered help in the controversy between the billionaire and the Federal Supreme Court (STF). It was not clear how Milei would get this supposed “help”.

Since Milei took office on December 10, he and Lula have not spoken. A silence that completed four months. The expectation is that the two will see each other at the G7 meeting, in June, in Italy, if Lula attends, or at the Mercosur meeting, days later, in Asunción, Paraguay.