When far-right outsider Javier Milei was elected president of Argentina in November, far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was the first European leader to congratulate him. In February, Milei returned the favor by making Italy the first European country he visited as president. Since then, the two leaders have only praised each other.
It’s not surprising that Meloni and Milei support each other, given the many far-right opinions and political positions they share, from opposition to abortion to hostility toward the LGBT community. On paper, both are socially conservative “populists” who capitalize on their people’s growing frustration with establishment politicians they see as serving “globalist forces.” But the apparent connection between the two leaders – who spoke at a far-right convention in Madrid last weekend – is not based solely on ideological affinity. In fact, the policies of Milei and Meloni are far from interchangeable: the Italian prime minister leads a statist and nationalist party with historical links to fascism, while the president of Argentina self-identifies as a libertarian and an “anarcho-capitalist”. Although Meloni considers reducing immigration one of the main causes of his government, Milei is largely indifferent to the issue. The most important factor uniting the two leaders seems not to be their shared ideological convictions, but the hypocritical “neoliberal populism” they practice in the service of Western imperialism.
In fact, a cursory review of the social reforms that the two leaders enacted during their time in power immediately exposes the neoliberal spirit of their so-called “populism”.
Milei won the presidential election riding a wave of anger over decades of economic crises and crippling corruption in Argentina. He promised to restart the system, and the main slogan of his electoral campaign was “out with them all”, in reference to the Argentine elite and traditional politicians. He promised to reduce state spending through privatization, cut inflation and put money in the pockets of suffering Argentines. In practice, however, his policies only produced more misery for ordinary Argentines, while further lining the pockets of the elite. In fact, after taking power, he made it clear that he has no interest in pleasing the public that brought him to power. He moved to cut state subsidies for fuel and transport, while also promising to reduce the budget of public universities by more than half, without paying attention to the precipitous drop in their approval ratings. He is still determined to pass highly unpopular reforms that would deprive workers of most basic rights and privatize key state-owned companies. He closed state agencies, laid off tens of thousands of employees and slashed pensions and salaries to attract more investors and boost market optimism. With society in general, not the political class, bearing the brunt of his radical economic policies, many Argentines are already questioning how populist Milei’s populism really is. However, the International Monetary Fund, the flag bearer of international neoliberalism, has already praised the “ambitious stabilization plan” promoted by Milei.
In Italy, Meloni’s populist credentials are also in question.
In August, the prime minister dealt a surprise blow to Italian banks by imposing a flat 40% tax on their profits from higher interest rates, after having reprimanded them for not rewarding deposits. This was a traditionally populist measure – on the side of the people and against the banks – and earned Meloni considerable praise and respect among his supporters. Just a few weeks later, however, a stern warning from the European Central Bank and reaction from the banking lobby led Meloni to reconsider his populist position and heavily dilute the recently introduced tax, in line with neoliberal interests.
And this was not Meloni’s first twist in negotiations with Italian banks. Ahead of the 2022 elections that brought her to power, Meloni and her party, Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), campaigned against the recapitalization of Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Italy’s oldest bank, which is in crisis. several years ago. . However, upon taking power, they quickly changed their position and began to defend privatization.
More recently, Meloni appeared to turn his back on his party’s long statist history and abandon any pretense of populist protectionism, announcing his intention to raise around 20 billion euros ($21.7 billion) over three years through sale of Italy’s most precious national companies, including the national railways and the postal service.
Unlike Milei, Meloni was elected on an exclusively protectionist candidacy, and her core voters are inherently suspicious of the free market politics and privatization efforts required by the US-led world order. This means she is less open about her intention to maintain the neoliberal status quo. However, actions speak louder than words, and Meloni’s actions expose the hypocrisy and superficiality of her “populism” to everyone.
On the foreign policy front, we see a similar pattern. Milei openly and enthusiastically supports the neoliberal consensus on all fronts, paying no real attention to the popular consensus in his country. He is prejudiced, even hostile, against China, supports the US in all its foreign adventures and considers himself an “Israel fanatic”. He appears to be living in a black and white world, where the moral and free West stands strong against a dangerous mix of communists, Marxists and murderous socialists. Meloni, meanwhile, is talking populist talk about standing up to the powers that be and putting Italy back on the map as a strong, independent nation, but never doing anything that would actually upset the US.
In fact, in her 2021 book, I Am Giorgia, the Italian prime minister advocated for a better relationship with Russia. However, when she became head of the Italian government, she immediately bowed to Washington and adopted its anti-Russian policies as her own. She firmly supported the US not only regarding the war in Ukraine, but also Israel’s war in Gaza. Basically, the populist Meloni who won the elections gave way to a neoliberal Meloni, so that Italy could get a few crumbs (still substantial for a small country) from the giant pie that is the military industrial complex.
Meloni demonstrated the same hypocrisy in his approach to Europe. In opposition, she was a staunch Eurosceptic, as were most of her main supporters. But once in power, she quickly aligned herself with aggressive European representatives such as the German president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The populist Meloni occasionally reappears to criticize European rigidity in the treatment of Italian debt, but these performances never translate into any action.
Today, both Italy and Argentina suffer from acute problems – from rising costs of living and the degradation of social services to unemployment and a lack of prospects for young people – born of the many excesses of capitalism. There is undoubtedly an appetite in both countries for a populist agenda and an overhaul of the system. However, the supposedly populist leaders of both countries, rather than focusing on solving these pressing problems, seem fixated on combating hypothetical threats from Russia and China. They are waging war against the specter of communism while their people suffocate under the weight of unbridled capitalism.
Of course, Meloni and Milei are not the same, but their differences are only superficial. Both are working to keep the populations they lead subservient to the neoliberal order, while at the same time trying to create the impression that they are “fighting for the people”. Meloni and Milei are good friends and will probably remain so, not because they share a belief system, but because they are both sovereignists without sovereignty.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
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