Chilean leader touts ‘historic’ alliance with Milei

SANTIAGO: Chile’s hard-line President Jose Antonio Kast on Monday touted his “historic” alliance with Argentina’s firebrand leader Javier Milei after talks in Buenos Aires between the two leaders of Latin America’s resurgent right.
Kast took office last month as Chile’s most right-wing leader in three decades, swept to power by voter anger over a surge in organized crime and illegal migration,
His first foreign visit as president took him across the Andes to Argentina to meet with Milei, a close ally of US President Donald Trump.
Kast later described their talks, which focused on cooperation on tourism, trade, investment and mining, as “a historic moment of integration.”
Milei shared an X post from his libertarian party, La Libertad Avanza, which said the visit was proof that “the right is advancing in Latin America!!!“
Kast and Milei have emerged as a counterweight to Brazil’s left-wing president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, one of the few remaining left-wing leaders on the continent.
They had previously met after Kast’s election victory in December, posing together with a chainsaw — a symbol of the budget cuts implemented by Milei which Kast wants to emulate in Chile.
Kast, who succeeded the left-wing Gabriel Boric, was elected on a promise to crack down on migration, which Chileans blame for a surge in violent crime in recent years.
On Monday, he said his administration would begin expelling irregular migrants “in the coming weeks and months.”
His visit to Buenos Aires comes days after a failed attempt to arrest elderly Chilean left-wing guerrilla Galvarino Apablaza in Argentina.
Apablaza, who had political refugee status in Argentina from 2010 until it was revoked by the courts in February, is accused of participating in the 1991 assassination of Chilean right-wing senator Jaime Guzman.
In the past week, Argentine police have sought to arrest him but failed to locate him.
“This is someone who is seeking to evade justice,” Kast declared.