With concerns about China and Russia's influence reaching Central and South America, the United States can take relief knowing they have an ally in Javier Milei's Argentina. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) praised Milei's decision to keep the South American country out of BRICS, the trade alliance between Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa in a recent op-ed for Real Clear World.
As Sen. Rubio detailed, Argentina is South America's second-largest economy and the world's third-largest source of lithium, "a mineral critical to the construction of everything from smartphones to fighter jets."
Therefore, if Argentina did end up joining BRICS, a move proposed by Milei's predecessor Alberto Fernandez, Sen. Rubio warned the United States would be "significantly weakened" on the international stage, and Argentina's "people would have fallen further under the grip of an overseas communist dictatorship."
China has made significant attempts to influence geopolitics in Central and South America, entering talks with Cuba on building a spy base on the island and a military satellite installation in Patagonia, Argentina. Additionally, China has invested in businesses along the Panama Canal and in infrastructure projects in the Bahamas.
More worryingly, Rubio called attention to multiple Middle Eastern countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Iran joining BRICS. As a result, he warned it will "become harder and harder for the United States to prevent international violence and oppression through sanctions."
Hence, Rubio wrote, "Republicans and Democrats alike, we should breathe a sigh of relief for President Milei’s decision and applaud his administration" in rejecting the BRICS alliance.
Moreover, he added the Biden Administration should do more to reciprocate the offer of friendship Milei's Argentina has proposed to the United States, working with him to curb the influence of China and other socialist countries in the Western Hemisphere and "encouraging the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to restructure Buenos Aires’s debt," which he noted was already occurring.
"Milei is taking the right steps to be a friend to the United States. The Biden Administration would do well to reciprocate that because friends are few and far between these days. In the months to come, President Biden must put his longstanding bias against conservatives behind him and take Argentina seriously as an international partner," Rubio concluded.
