Argentina’s Javier Milei fires foreign minister over pro-Cuba vote

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Argentina’s President Javier Milei has fired his foreign minister after the country voted for a resolution at the UN condemning US economic sanctions against Cuba, as the libertarian leader pushes an ideological realignment of the South American country’s foreign policy.

Diana Mondino will be replaced by Argentina’s ambassador to the US, Gerardo Werthein, the president’s office said on Wednesday. Werthein is a businessman who is an influential figure within Milei’s government.

Earlier in the day Argentina had voted with 186 other countries to back the UN’s 32nd resolution condemning the US economic embargo on Cuba. Only the US and Israel voted against it.

“Argentina is going through a period of profound change [which] demands that our diplomatic corps reflects in each of its decisions the values of liberty, sovereignty, and individual rights that characterise western democracies,” Milei’s office said, adding the country is “categorically opposed to the Cuban dictatorship”.

Milei, who pledged during his presidential campaign last year that he would not “do business with communists”, has given fiery speeches at rightwing conferences in the US and Europe defending free market capitalism and accusing international institutions such as the UN of embracing a “socialist agenda”.

Mondino, an economics professor who was one of Milei’s first cabinet picks, has played an important role in smoothing over diplomatic disputes between the president and Argentina’s traditional allies, such as Brazil and Spain, and second-largest trading partner China, which Mondino visited in April.

However, analysts said her influence within the government has diminished in recent months, with Milei’s sister and chief of staff Karina Milei stepping in to appoint people within the foreign ministry.

Milei has cooled his rhetoric on Argentina’s most important economic partners. He told the Financial Times in an interview this month that China, whose leaders he once referred to as “murderers”, was “truly a super-friendly partner. They have really surprised me.”

But he has maintained a hard line on Latin America’s far-left authoritarian governments, becoming one of the region’s fiercest opponents of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. Judicial authorities in Argentina and Venezuela both issued arrest warrants for the other’s president in September.