Brazil downgrades ties with Argentina after Milei insults Lula

(CN) — Brazil has downgraded its diplomatic representation in Argentina to the chargé d’affaires level and said Ambassador Julio Bitelli would not return to Buenos Aires following repeated attacks by Argentine President Javier Milei on Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Supreme Court justices.

The Tuesday decision capped 10 days of escalating tensions that began July 25, when Milei attended the Liberal Party convention that formally nominated Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro for president. Bolsonaro will challenge Lula in the Oct. 4 election.

During the convention, Milei endorsed Bolsonaro, called Lula a “convict” and a “totalitarian” and criticized members of Brazil’s Supreme Court.

Milei also claimed, without presenting evidence, that Brazil was behind an “anti-Argentine campaign” financed by political adversaries abroad, including the Mexican government.

When reporters asked Lula about the accusation, he replied, “Who is this guy?”

Brazil recalled Bitelli for consultations days later. The dispute escalated again during an Aug. 2 interview with Argentine television channel LN+, when Milei repeated his accusations against Lula.

“He has been convicted of theft and corruption, and he has been in prison, so it is true that we can call him a convict,” Milei said.

Brazil announced the diplomatic downgrade two days later.

Brazil’s Supreme Court annulled Lula’s corruption convictions in 2021 after finding the court that tried him lacked jurisdiction. The ruling restored his political rights but did not decide the merits of the claims.

A source at Brazil’s Foreign Ministry told Courthouse News that Daniel Raimondi, Argentina’s ambassador to Brazil, was summoned to the ministry Tuesday and presented with a formal note of protest over Milei’s remarks about Lula and Brazilian Supreme Court justices. Raimondi was also informed of the downgrade.

Brazil’s embassy in Buenos Aires and its consulates in Buenos Aires and Mendoza will remain open, the source said. The diplomatic downgrade is not expected to affect consular services, trade or other areas of bilateral cooperation.

Raimondi has not been expelled, and any decision about his status rests with the Argentine government, the source added.

“It is a very serious decision,” Maurício Santoro, a Brazilian political scientist and former visiting researcher at Torcuato Di Tella University in Argentina, said. “As an expression of diplomatic dissatisfaction, it ranks just below severing diplomatic relations altogether.”

Argentina is Brazil’s third-largest trading partner, behind China and the U.S., while Brazil is Argentina’s largest. Their economies are closely integrated, particularly in the automotive, agricultural and energy sectors, and both are founding members of the Mercosur trade bloc.

“This represents a serious deterioration in the relationship, and I would say it is the lowest point in bilateral political ties since Mercosur was created,” Santiago Tangir, director of the Argentina-Brazil Studies and Cooperation Center at the National University of Avellaneda, said. “Argentina is needlessly damaging its relationship with the country with which it has its deepest economic, productive and geopolitical ties in Latin America.”

The dispute also comes as political alliances with Donald Trump increasingly shape Brazil’s presidential campaign. Milei and Flávio Bolsonaro are both allies of the U.S. president, whose tariffs on Brazilian goods have become an issue in Brazil’s presidential campaign.

Santoro said Trump’s return to the White House brought a more interventionist U.S. policy toward Latin America and emboldened politicians in the region who identify with his agenda, including Milei.

Political relations between Brazil and Argentina had generally remained cordial since both countries returned to democracy in the 1980s, Santoro said. Over the past decade, however, polarization in both countries led politicians to become more involved in their neighbor’s domestic disputes.

Santoro cited former Argentine President Alberto Fernández’s visit to Lula while he was imprisoned, the Bolsonaro family’s support for Milei and Lula’s support for Peronist candidates in Argentina.

“Until this crisis, Lula and Milei had a terrible relationship, but relations between the two governments were going relatively well at the ambassadorial and ministerial levels,” Santoro said.

Diplomats and government officials had maintained cooperation in areas including energy, with the two countries discussing plans for Brazil to import natural gas from Argentina’s Vaca Muerta formation.

“What we have now is the crisis spilling over into the bureaucracy and the career diplomatic corps,” Santoro said. “That is unprecedented since the return to democracy.”

Daniel Ricardo Castelan, professor of international relations at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, said the absence of an ambassador is likely to limit high-level political dialogue but unlikely to halt technical cooperation or disrupt Mercosur.

“Mercosur is much stronger and has existed much longer than the presidents,” Castelan said. “Brazil and Argentina are economically integrated.”

Any attempt to extend the dispute to trade or regional cooperation would impose high costs on both countries and likely face opposition from businesses and other domestic groups, Castelan said.

The dispute has so far remained at the political and diplomatic level, with neither government announcing commercial retaliation.

Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno said in an interview that his government would not respond with a similar diplomatic measure.

“We have profound ideological and political differences, but we have never taken them to the diplomatic level,” Quirno said after Brazil announced its decision.

Argentina’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to a separate request for comment.

“What makes this particularly serious is that it does not stem from a dispute over competing national interests,” Tangir said. “Argentina and Brazil are not at odds over a border, natural resources, tariffs or a trade conflict. It is fundamentally the result of errors and decisions made by the Argentine president.”

Courthouse News reporter Marília Marasciulo is based in Brazil.

Lucía Cholakian Herrera is a Courthouse News correspondent covering Latin America. She is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.