What did Javier Milei say about Argentina's foreign policy at the UN?

The speech covered three areas he named up front: what the UN should have done and failed to do, what it did when it should have stayed out, and Argentina's position on artificial intelligence.

Alignment and sovereignty

Javier Milei told the General Assembly that the UN has broken the "sacred covenant" on which it was founded, failing at its core mission while expanding far beyond its original remit. On the question of where Argentina stands, the answer he gave was unambiguous. Argentina had embraced free enterprise capitalism, was rebuilding its military and had "unequivocally aligned" itself with the West, the United States and Israel, and he condemned Iranian attacks on Israel.

That alignment is not only rhetorical. During his 2023 presidential campaign, Milei put his alliance with Israel as a priority for the new focus of Argentina's foreign policy, and his administration declared Hamas a terrorist organization and voted against Palestine's incorporation into the United Nations.

The Falkland Islands

Turning to the Falkland Islands, which he called a "national cause," Milei said the UN had looked the other way while unilateral changes continued despite a resolution adopted 50 years ago. He was specific about what Argentina has done: Argentina had submitted protests, sanctioned companies involved in oil extraction on the disputed continental shelf, including the Sea Lion oil project operating under British licenses Argentina "rejects as illegal and illegitimate," and sent a sovereignty defense bill to Congress, again calling on the United Kingdom to resume negotiations. His summary of the UN's record on the dispute was blunt: "every time [the UN] failed, rather than reviewing the model or apologizing, they doubled down."

The UN's mandate and AI

On the pandemic, Milei said bodies under the UN "put themselves before scientific evidence and the sovereignty of nations and promoted forced lockdown policies throughout the world," calling it "a global experiment in social control disguised as science." He announced Argentina had left the World Health Organization on those grounds.

On artificial intelligence, his foreign policy logic carried into tech policy. He said Argentina would "stand at the forefront of freedom" with a commitment not to regulate AI pre-emptively, limited liability for companies operating with AI agents, and tax incentives.

The throughline of the speech was one sentence he gave near the end. Argentina will remain in multilateral forums and work with other countries where common action is necessary, but cooperation, he said, is not subordination.