A farewell party for Argentina’s ambassador to the United Nations last week may have been bittersweet for Ricardo Lagorio, the country’s envoy since March 2024. He was saying goodbye to his colleagues and fellow diplomats as he returns to South America, retiring from the foreign ministry.
The Buenos Aires Times reported in late October that Lagorio would be leaving the ambassadorship, along with other top diplomats in recent months, just as President Javier Milei sent a letter to the diplomatic corps that they needed to align with his “defence of the ideas of freedom” or “step aside.”
Lagorio’s reported decision to step down was followed quickly by the departure of his boss, Foreign Minister Diana Mondino, but for a slightly different reason.
On Oct. 30, in a routine vote, Argentina voted yes in the 193-member General Assembly to lift the decades-long United States economic embargo against Cuba. Only the US and Israel voted no, following their tradition for years, except for 2016, when President Barack Obama abstained in the vote against the embargo.
Argentina’s vote was enough for Milei, a self-described anarcho-politician, to immediately fire Mondino, replacing her with Gerardo Wertheim, a former ambassador to the US. Francisco Tropepi has also been picked as ambassador to the UN, transferring from Argentina’s embassy in Tel Aviv.
Lagorio served with the diplomatic corps for four decades. Among other roles, he was Argentina’s ambassador to Russia from 2017 to 2020, also representing the country in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The goodbye party for him on Nov. 13 signaled the abrupt end of an era for Argentina in the UN as a progressive defender of human rights under leftist governments as Milei’s libertarianism shifts Argentina’s foreign policy and stances on women’s rights in new directions. Earlier this year, for example, Milei shut down the government’s Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity.
Milei, in office since December 2023, disdains the UN. In his maiden speech at the annual opening session of the General Assembly in September, he said the UN has moved from being “an organization that pursued peace to an organization that imposes an ideological agenda on its members about an endless list of topics.”
Adding that the organization “attempts to impose on citizens of the world a specific way of living,” he called the Sustainable Development Goals — adopted by consensus to end poverty and hunger and ensure gender equality worldwide by 2030 — “nothing but a supranational government program that is socialist in shape.”
His remarks tracked his agenda for Argentina, the second-biggest economy in South America, to dismantle the state from within, believing its role is to provide security and macroeconomic policies while stripping out the civil servant class. Public spending has fallen dramatically, with the International Monetary Fund predicting that the country’s inflation rate will hit 45 percent as poverty rates soar.
Milei’s heavy tilt toward US President-elect Donald Trump is also influencing Argentine policies, including at the UN. The same day that he visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, on Nov. 13, to take part in a gala, the Argentine delegation at the UN-led climate change conference, COP29, suddenly departed, three days into the gathering in Baku, Azerbaijan. According to media reports, Milei ordered the Argentine representatives to leave COP29, which runs through Nov. 22.
A report in the Buenos Aires Times said the team was called back because Milei objects to the UN’s 2030 agenda, or the Sustainable Development Goals, as he railed against them in September. No statement has been released as to the reason for the withdrawal.
“Negotiations at COP29 have a clear focus on the need for more financing from developed countries to mitigate climate change,” the Times said, adding that it is uncertain whether Argentina will also withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, the 2015 pact aiming to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Milei has called global warming a “socialist lie.”
Trump, who is reportedly planning to drop out of the Paris accord as he did in his first term, called Milei his “favorite president” during his visit at Mar-a-Lago last week, according to Milei’s spokesperson.
Known for his theatrics, such as using a chainsaw to dramatize his tax-cutting policies, Milei was recorded on video last week dancing at the gala and photographed profusely with Trump and Elon Musk, owner of X and a designated efficiency czar, with Vivek Ramaswamy, for the incoming administration. A commentator tweeted that Milei was the “court jester.”
Argentina also shocked the UN General Assembly Hall on Nov. 15 when it was the sole country to vote against a resolution intensifying steps to prevent and end violence against women and girls online. Only 13 countries abstained and 170 voted for the text, which was sponsored by France and the Netherlands.
A message sent by PassBlue to Milei’s spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, regarding its vote went unanswered.
Milei’s government is also voting with Israel and a handful of other countries against Palestinian causes at the UN, even though Argentina recognizes the state of Palestine. In the General Assembly on May 10, Argentina voted no on a resolution to endorse Palestine’s quest for full UN membership, along with eight other countries, including the US, Israel and Hungary. The resolution was adopted by 143 votes.
In September, Argentina voted with 14 other countries against a resolution calling on Israel to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, based on an International Court of Justice ruling earlier this year. The resolution succeeded with 120 votes. On Nov. 15, the Assembly voted favorably for the right of Palestinians to self-determination, with only six countries against it, including Argentina, Israel and the US.
In November, Argentina also rejected a draft resolution calling for an assessment of nuclear-free zones, including possibly establishing new ones in the Mideast. The resolution received 172 yes votes; two no from Israel and Argentina; and three abstentions (Armenia, Central African Republic, Fiji).
Argentina is also reportedly withdrawing its three military officers from the UN peacekeeping mission in South Lebanon, called UNIFIL. Since September, the Israelis have repeatedly demanded that the mission move from its bases so that the Israel Defense Forces can better carry out their offensive against the Hezbollah militia in the region. So far, the UN has refused to leave despite being subjected to attacks by Israel and numerous peacekeepers being injured.
This article has been updated to correct that the US abstained in the 2016 vote in the General Assembly on the US economic embargo against Cuba. It did not vote in favor of lifting it. It was also updated to correct the number of Argentine officers leaving UNIFIL, who confirmed it was three and not four, as reported in media.
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Dulcie Leimbach is a co-founder, with Barbara Crossette, of PassBlue. For PassBlue and other publications, Leimbach has reported from New York and overseas from West Africa (Burkina Faso and Mali) and from Europe (Scotland, Sicily, Vienna, Budapest, Kyiv, Armenia, Iceland, The Hague and Cyprus). She has provided commentary on the UN for BBC World Radio, ARD German TV and Radio, NHK’s English channel, Background Briefing with Ian Masters/KPFK Radio in Los Angeles and the Foreign Press Association.
Previously, she was an editor for the Coalition for the UN Convention Against Corruption; from 2008 to 2011, she was the publications director of the United Nations Association of the USA. Before UNA, Leimbach was an editor at The New York Times for more than 20 years. She began her reporting career in small-town papers in San Diego, Calif., and graduating to the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. Leimbach has been a fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies as well as at Yaddo, the artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; taught news reporting at Hofstra University; and guest-lectured at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the CUNY Journalism School. She graduated from the University of Colorado and has an M.F.A. in writing from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
