Buenos Aires Herald 
Right-wing Argentine politicians welcomed Donald Trump’s electoral win in the United States with open arms. Former President Mauricio Macri congratulated the president-elect on his victory, calling him “dear friend,” while Vice President Victoria Villarruel described the Republican’s triumph as “historic.”
Macri took to social media site X to send his regards. “I want to congratulate you for your victory and wish you the best for this new presidency, dear friend,” he wrote in a post on Wednesday morning.
The post was accompanied by a 2022 photo of the pair amicably sharing lunch at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida. Macri has an almost empty glass in front of him, while Trump is wearing a T-shirt that says “President Donald Trump” and a MAGA cap.
The two had met to “share opinions on the global context” and “the ties between Argentina and the United States,” Macri wrote in an X post back then.
The Macri and Trump presidency’s overlapped for almost two years. While the former ruled between 2015 and 2019, the latter’s first term extended from 2017 to 2021. In 2018, the International Monetary Fund approved a highly questioned US$57 billion loan requested by the Macri administration. This became the largest loan the IMF had ever given to any country, and the U.S. government played a key role by endorsing it.
Beyond their institutional relationship, Macri and Trump have shared a personal bond for over two decades. Trump himself revealed this during a visit Macri paid to the White House in 2017, shortly after taking office.
According to Argentine media outlet Infobae, the two met in the 1980s when Macri’s late father, Franco, was planning to build a 150-story skyscraper in West Manhattan. In order to do the project, Macri senior partnered with The Trump Organization, the president-elect’s construction company. Mauricio Macri was in charge of closing the deal and thus came into contact with Donald Trump.
Although the project came to a halt, the friendship between Trump and Macri blossomed. Macri visited Trump in New York over the years, while Trump traveled to Buenos Aires and Punta del Este in Uruguay several times to visit Macri.
In addition to Macri, VP Victoria Villarruel also congratulated the U.S. president-elect for his “historic return to the White House.” She chalked up his victory to his “brave defense of the values that identify all Americans,” referring to the American continent.
“Love for our homeland, defense of life and family, and the right of every human being to freely develop their life project under God’s protection,” she wrote on X.
Tourism, Environment, and Sports Secretariat Daniel Scioli celebrated Trump’s “magnificent electoral victory,” saying he wished his administration would usher in a new era of “important developments” for both Argentina and the U.S. He posted his message on X along with a picture of himself and Trump together in Atlantic City in 1989, calling it an “emotional memory.”
