Argentine President Javier Milei lambasted Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez as a “disgraceful dictator” during a speech in Madrid on October 21, wading into Spain’s election campaign five weeks before polling day.
Speaking at a breakfast hosted by the Nueva Economía Fórum, Milei linked Sánchez to what he called “the sinister 21st-century socialism”. He described Argentina’s Kirchnerism as the local branch of that movement. “Kick the Socialists out, because you are the cradle of liberalism,” he told an audience of politicians, executives, diplomats and foreign correspondents, according to AFP.
Argentina’s firebrand libertarian leader went on to label Sánchez a “thief” and “corrupt.” Graft inquiries in recent months have ensnared members of the Spanish prime minister’s family and several onetime leading lights of his party. Sánchez has always maintained that his administration is clean and that the Socialists’ finances are above board.
Spain’s foreign ministry hit back in a statement that accused Milei of a “call for the use of violence”, without identifying the remark in question. “Spain is a sovereign nation that does not accept external interference, nor attacks and insults against its president and its freely, democratically and sovereignly elected institutions,” the ministry said. It added “It is shameful that a person who holds the highest office of a sister nation makes visits to our country with the only aim of trying to foster a climate of polarisation and violence.”
Spaniards vote on November 29, when Sánchez will seek to prolong a premiership that began eight years ago. His fierce confrontations with Washington and Tel Aviv have raised his standing among progressives worldwide. However, domestic opinion polls point to a victory for the conservative Popular Party (PP), a result that would end one of Europe’s last remaining left-leaning governments. Sánchez called the snap election after parliament rejected his cabinet's housing decrees amid mass protests over soaring rents. The PP is expected to finish first without an outright majority, a result that would give far-right party Vox considerable leverage in coalition negotiations.
On X, Sánchez posted a brief clip in which he embraced the label “zurdo”, the slang Milei habitually uses to belittle the left. A banner hung outside Socialist Party headquarters sarcastically welcomed the Argentine president on behalf of Spain’s leftists and highlighted the country’s economic growth, Ámbito reported. The Socialists have also put Milei in their campaign videos, casting him and the chainsaw that has become the emblem of his austerity drive as part of what the party calls a “reactionary international”.
The visit is Milei’s seventh to Spain since he took office in December 2023, and his third this year after trips in March and June. As on previous unofficial visits, his schedule did not include a meeting with Sánchez. Clarín reported that Spain’s Royal Household turned down his request for an audience with King Felipe VI. It said protocol required such a meeting to follow one with the head of government. Milei attributed the outcome to scheduling conflicts.
His Madrid itinerary centred on Sánchez’s rivals. “I am clearly friends with [Vox leader] Santiago Abascal and with Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and I believe they have sound, positive ideas for pulling Spain out of its decline,” he said, according to AFP.
Those alliances proved awkward in the middle of a campaign. Ayuso, the PP president of the Madrid region, confirmed only on October 21 that she would receive Milei. The meeting was held behind closed doors at an undisclosed location, with no press appearance afterwards.
Since Abascal was campaigning in Galicia and Asturias, Milei met instead with Vox secretary-general Ignacio Garriga and the Disenso Foundation, a think-tank linked to the right-wing populist party. He later posted a video of a call with Abascal to rebut an El País report that his visit had caused unease on the Spanish right. No meeting was scheduled with PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
Milei also took aim at Madrid’s handling of migration, arguing that “every immigrant is a vote”, and singled out events in Ceuta in July. More than 70,000 people reached the north African enclave from Morocco that month, though the vast majority were sent back in the weeks that followed. Right-wing politicians abroad, spearheaded by Donald Trump, have seized on that influx to attack Sánchez. Echoing Trump’s narrative, Milei blamed Europe’s left for the continent’s “brutal stagnation” and accused it of fomenting an “invasion”. He also argued that state meddling in Spain’s housing market was worsening the affordability crisis.
The latest spat revives a quarrel that has soured relations since 2024. That year, Madrid kept its ambassador away from Buenos Aires for months in protest at Milei’s description of Begoña Gómez, the prime minister’s wife, as “corrupt”.
The Spanish row follows a string of bitter clashes between Milei and left-wing leaders in Latin America, chief among them Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. On his flight to Madrid, Milei posted on social media accusing Lula of plotting to steal the upcoming election and calling him a “thieving leftist.” Lula faces right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro in a run-off on October 25, after Bolsonaro finished almost two points ahead in the first round.
In July, Brazil recalled its ambassador to Buenos Aires over a speech Milei gave in São Paulo at the event launching Flávio Bolsonaro’s presidential bid. There, Milei insulted Lula calling him a “thief, convict and delinquent” and branded Supreme Court justice Alexandre de Moraes a “bald piece of trash.” Brazil’s foreign minister Mauro Vieira called it “an unprecedented provocation in the more than 200-year history of bilateral relations”. Lula and Milei have never held bilateral talks.
Milei’s frequent foreign trips, meanwhile, have drawn criticism at home, where opposition politicians question their cost and value to Argentine diplomacy. Spain is his second most visited destination after the US, which he has visited 20 times, according to El País. The Casa Rosada says the trips help raise Argentina’s global profile and attract investment in energy and mining. Foreign minister Pablo Quirno and presidential spokesman Adrián Ravier accompanied Milei, who was due back in Buenos Aires on October 22.