From Blinken to Trump: Javier Milei’s strange journey.

President Javier Milei of Argentina hosted U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in Buenos Aires on Friday morning to discuss the various ways in which Mr. Milei is reshaping Argentina’s foreign policy in line with the United States.

A few hours later, both men would board separate planes for Washington. Mr. Blinken returned to the White House and President Biden. Mr. Milei was headed to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where he was scheduled to take the stage before former President Donald J. Trump and deliver a speech that would almost certainly rail against the dangers of the left.

Mr. Milei’s hectic route — from south to north, left to right — shows how Argentina’s new president is trying to navigate the politically turbulent waters of the United States in an election year, knowing that the next administration could be crucial for his own success.

The United States is not only Argentina’s largest foreign investor and third-largest trading partner, but it also has the most control of any country over the International Monetary Fund, to which Argentina owes $40 billion.

Argentina is largely bankrupt – Mr. Milei’s new slogan is “There is no money” – and his plan to lift Argentina out of the financial crisis could depend on getting more money from the IMF and more time to get it back pay.

He is already rushing his economic plans ahead of Argentina’s annual inflation is greater than 250 percent, the highest in the world by some measures, and protests and strikes are increasing. If he can stabilize Argentina’s economy, a feat no Argentine president has achieved in decades, he has said he would like to exchange Argentina’s currency for the U.S. dollar.

So Mr. Milei, a former fiery television pundit who backed Mr. Trump’s claims about 2020 by election fraudhas been working quite nicely with the Biden administration since taking office in December.

He has criticized China and Russia, closely aligned with the United States and Israel, and pulled Argentina out of its planned entry into the BRICS, the alliance of developing countries designed to counter American power.

This week in Washington, his justice minister urged an even tougher crackdown on Venezuela’s authoritarian government, even as some of Argentina’s neighbors argue against sanctions to ease economic suffering.

At the start of the meeting with Mr. Blinken on Friday, Mr. Milei told reporters: “Argentina has decided to return to the side of the West, to the side of progress, to democracy and, above all, freedom.”

The United States has a lot to gain in Argentina, especially in the country’s vast reserves of strategic minerals, including lithium, a key component of electric car batteries. It was a topic of conversations between Mr. Milei and Mr. Blinken on Friday.

But the friendship Milei wants to forge with Biden is somewhat complicated by his separate attempt to bolster his global image as a fighter against the modern left, which he believes is poisoning the West with socialism and social justice activism.

Are speech This year’s denunciation of socialism and feminism at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, went viral after billionaire Elon Musk shared it with millions of followers.

Mr. Trump has been a big fan and has repeatedly encouraged Mr. Milei to “make Argentina great again” in online posts. But the two have not yet met in person.

That could change on Saturday, when they will be the two keynote speakers on the final day of CPAC, which has become something of a Trump festival in recent years. (Other speakers this year include pundit Steve Bannon, pillow director Mike Lindell, and far-right Congressmen Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz.)

Mr. Milei’s spokesman, Manuel Adorni, said Thursday that “there is no chance” that CPAC’s actions would damage relations with the White House. “Not this episode, nor any others in the future,” he said.

Mr. Milei will likely be embraced as a right-wing celebrity at the event. His star power among conservatives was already on display this week when Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida visited Buenos Aires. Mr. Milei gave Mr. Rubio a coffee mug with “There is no money” on it, and the senator asked him to autograph it.

Mr. Rubio then handed an aide the mug. “Don’t spread this,” he said.

Lucia Cholakian Herrera And Edward Wong contributed reporting from Buenos Aires.