Milei's Foreign Policy: Trump or Xi Jinping?

Donald Trump or Xi Jinping? Capitalism with freedom, or capitalism under the command of the Chinese Communist Party? An Argentina integrated into the free world, or an Argentina willing to negotiate its convictions according to its financing needs?

Fernando León | September 18, 2026

Donald Trump or Xi Jinping? Capitalism with freedom, or capitalism under the command of the Chinese Communist Party? An Argentina integrated into the free world, or an Argentina willing to negotiate its convictions according to its financing needs?

Javier Milei's government owes Argentines an answer. His political movement came to power promising an unambiguous alignment with the West. That's why, when Shenzhen -- the southern Chinese boomtown often held up as an economic model -- is celebrated, and Beijing is courted as a partner, it's fair to ask where pragmatism ends and surrender begins.

Who voted to trade the American Dream -- the very idea Milei has embraced in his own rhetoric -- for a Chinese tall tale?

Argentina's economy minister, Luis Caputo, recently put it this way: “Swap out Shenzhen for Argentina, and that's exactly what we're doing.” He was talking about economic opening and investment incentives. The comparison doesn't prove he wants to import a dictatorship. But it does expose a remarkable omission for a self-described libertarian minister: touting the economic success of a Chinese city without explaining what role freedom plays in the model he's celebrating.

Shenzhen is a Chinese region belonging to a country ruled by a single party. There is no political competition there capable of displacing the Communist Party through free elections. Prosperity coexists with a government that keeps the final word over public life.

Has that detail stopped mattering? The difference between the United States........

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