Argentina’s antifascist diaspora
Weekly march of retirees at the National Congress in Buenos Aires on September 4, 2024. Photo © Susi Maresca.
Opinion • Eugx Grotz and Ricardo Arraga of the Assembly in Solidarity with Argentina (ASA) in Berlin • April 25, 2025 • Leer en castellano
The rise of Argentine President Javier Milei is far from exceptional. It tracks with the global surge of the far right, fueled by economic crisis and deepening social fragmentation.
Figures like Donald Trump and political parties like the Alternative for Germany (AfD) have capitalized on popular discontent with traditional elites, offering a discourse that promises order and easy solutions. They advance a vision of a world threatened by obvious enemies that require drastic responses.
Milei has traveled internationally to ingratiate himself into global right-wing networks. His participation in summits and ties with well-known figures were established even before he took office. He uses international support to legitimize his government and has made Argentina a laboratory for extreme-right policies that other countries can import.
The only effective response to the rise of the global right is an internationalist movement that understands these transnational networks of power and influence, and confronts them in practice.
When one lives within a country with a surging far fight, resistance can mean getting out into the streets. Those who are abroad may play a smaller role, but we believe that it can be vital.
Even from afar, we can identify and call out Milei's connections with the international right and undermine his legitimacy on the global stage.
Weekly march of retirees at the National Congress in Buenos Aires on August 28, 2024. Photo © Susi Maresca.
Solidarity from Germany
The Assembly in Solidarity with Argentina (ASA) in Berlin was founded in December 2023 as a heterogeneous, multi-tendency collective that operates as a space of refuge against the advance of Javier Milei's government and seeks to build politics and analysis to oppose it. It also helps make Europeans aware of the disastrous consequences of his economic program.
The ASA has played a key political role among people in the Argentine diaspora. It does so with the support of the Latin American Berlin Bloc, a left-wing migrant political organization committed to international solidarity and fighting the right, colonialism, racism and patriarchy. The ASA was central to the creation of the Argentina Is Not For Sale International Network, which links Argentine collectives and political spaces in cities across the world.
In June 2024, the August von Hayek Foundation—a neoliberal think tank with links to prominent figures in the AfD—gave Milei a medal for his leadership. At the award ceremony, Hayek Society Chairman Dr. Stefan Kooths claimed Milei was “defending a fundamental change in course [...] by loosening the shackles that stop people from helping themselves.”
But the fact that the German right wing welcomed the Argentine president does not mean that he received a warm reception overall. Multiple organizations mobilized to protest his visit.
The ASA played a role in organizing Anti-Milei Month, which ran from May 25 to June 22, 2024 and included conferences, seminars, and film screenings, culminating in protests in Berlin and Hamburg.
Pressure from the street and the public generally helped to ensure officials limited Milei’s meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to basic protocol, depriving him of the rituals of honor typically extended to heads of state.
German and Argentine media reported on our actions. The latter helped us build dialogue and reflection with comrades in Argentina.
Anti-Milei Month marked a milestone of political visibility and allowed those of us in the diaspora to express our outrage at what is happening in Argentina. Friends and acquaintances in Argentina who saw us in the media sent surprised and affectionate messages. Our actions helped us reestablish connections and participate in a common struggle.
Prioritizing policing, slashing services
Although there is some local variation, the advance of the far-right follows a pattern worldwide: it prioritizes cuts to social spending and strengthening the repressive forces.
In Argentina, retirees have borne the brunt of Milei's barbaric austerity measures. In April 2025, the basic family food basket for pensioners will cost $1,026 a month, while the average pension has remained stagnant at a paltry $244.
On March 12, the Security Ministry, run by Patricia Bullrich, launched a brutal crackdown against retirees participating in their weekly protest in Buenos Aires. Authorities arrested at least 120 and injured 50. Photographer Pablo Grillo was among them—he is still fighting for his life after being hit in the head by a tear gas canister.
Milei’s policies have found some echo in Germany. The former Minister of Finance, Christian Lindner, praised Milei's “chainsaw” approach to social policy and suggested that Germans may want to emulate him.
And on March 21, the German Senate approved a constitutional reform that allows increased spending on militarization without regard for debt limits. This reform aligns with the increased militarization of Europe in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Trump’s return to the White House and the suggestion that the US may reduce its commitment to the region’s security is an additional impetus.
Germany is in a difficult economic situation following two consecutive years of recession in 2023 and 2024 when GDP declined by 0.3 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively. Forecasts for 2025 point to stagnation, with zero percent growth. In the context of the current economic crisis, the German Senate approved a €3 billion budget cut for 2025, even as they earmarked billions for the military. The transportation, health, housing and education sectors are the most affected by the cuts.
The policies implemented by each of these governments clearly respond to one another.
Milei's Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI) seeks to attract mining, gas and oil investments to Argentina by offering 30-year tax and tariff exemptions.
It is part of a move to push Argentina’s economy back toward the export of raw materials instead of promoting industrialization and skilled employment. The RIGI favors foreign investors, including the German energy sector industrialists who are seeking lithium and gas.
A wall of hate
In a bid to distract from its harmful policies, the global right has doubled down on discourses against two supposed internal enemies: immigrants and the LGBTIQNB+ community. At the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, Javier Milei parroted Trump and Musk by attacking “woke culture”—sparking a wave of international protests—and blaming immigrants for the crisis in Europe.
A demonstration by the Berlin Assembly in Solidarity with Argentina on February 1 at Brandenburg Gate. The march was held in support of the antifascist rally held in Argentina that same day. Photo © Laura Jaburek.
In the US, the Trump administration has toughened its policies with mass deportations, sending some to a prison in El Salvador, it accused of being “enemy aliens” through specious connections to groups declared terrorist organizations. In Germany, anti-immigrant discourse has become central not only to far-right parties but also to more traditional ones.
In the run-up to Germany’s February 23 elections, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) released a “Five-Point Plan” to close the borders to asylum seekers and carry out systematic deportations. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens advanced similar border control measures, reinforcing structural racism.
The outcome of these elections paints a complex picture. The extreme right positioned itself as the second political force in the country after the CDU, with 20.8 percent of the vote. Die Linke (the left party) obtained 8.77 percent of votes nationally.
While the CDU is supposed to act as a brake on the far right, it has relied on reactionary discourse throughout its rise. This became clear when a section of the CDU voted in favor of a bill to restrict asylum together with the AfD—the first such cooperation with the far-right since World War II.
The CDU wants Germany to play a leading role in Europe, in contrast to the AfD, which seeks alliances with figures such as Trump and Musk. Both parties share a belief system based on conservative values and a defined national identity in which exclusion and fear set the agenda.
In part, the extreme right’s popularity is a protest vote against traditional parties and their inability to solve everyday problems.
Milei criticizes the political “caste” and promises that they will pay the costs of austerity, but in doing so, he hopes to buy his way into that club. His rhetoric of confrontation with the “establishment” isn’t a break, but a strategy to reconfigure power to his benefit.
Voters have supported authoritarian figures who call for an “iron fist” and promise to restore order. It is crucial we challenge the narrative that these parties represent an alternative to the existing order.
Organizing real alternatives
It isn’t enough to condemn the advance of the extreme right: we must advance solutions based on participation, social justice and the defense of fundamental rights.
The ASA is now supporting a voter registration campaign for Argentines living in Germany, ensuring they update their addresses so they can vote in elections to be held on October 2025. We believe it is strategically important to expand political discussion and participation during this election year. We organize and do solidarity work as a collective in the spaces we inhabit as members of the diaspora.
On May 1, International Workers' Day, the ASA will march with other migrant organizations. We are building a grassroots, internationalist and anti-fascist movement with these groups. We seek to deepen our connections with collectives in Germany and to continue building the Argentina Is Not For Sale International Network, which has added new nodes in cities around the world.
We are committed to transforming the despair that comes from being physically distant during a time of fascist encroachment into an inspiration for political action.
As members of the diaspora, we know that we, too, must struggle.
