Argentina’s President Milei fires his foreign minister after a vote to end the country’s ban on Cuba

Wednesday, Argentine President Javier Milei removed Diana Mondino as Foreign Affairs Minister. Mondino had voted in favor of ending the U.S. ban on Cuba at the UN.

Milei, a libertarian who took office in late 2023, is openly pro-US and has been less friendly with communist trade partners in the area and abroad. For example, he has taken steps to keep Argentina away from Cuba and Venezuela.

Earlier on Wednesday, the U.N. General Assembly passed a motion that, with only the U.S. and Israel’s votes against it, strongly asked the U.S. to end its decades-long sanctions against Cuba.

Milei, who wants Argentina to follow the lead of the US and Israel, shared a tweet from a lower house member who praised his government for “not supporting nor being an accomplice of dictators.”

Manuel Adorni, a spokesman for the president, said on X that Gerardo Werthein, who has been Argentina’s ambassador to the US, will take over as foreign minister from Mondino.

Mondino was one of Milei’s first approved cabinet members. He has been very important in keeping diplomatic ties with other countries calm, even though the president has said hurtful things about Brazil and China.

A local news site called TN said that Milei was having lunch when Werthein called to ask about Argentina’s vote to lift the ban on Cuba, which made the right-wing leader very angry.

In early 2018, YPF (YPFDm.BA), Argentina’s state energy company, said it would not provide fuel to Cuban plane Cubana. As a result, Cubana had to cancel a route between Havana and Buenos Aires that it had been running for almost 40 years.

At the time, Cuba’s foreign minister said that Argentine officials said the move was legal because of the U.S. blockade.