Madrid and Buenos Aires exchanged words on Saturday after Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente suggested Argentina’s President Javier Milei was a drug user, reports Reuters.
Puente, during a debate on Friday in Salamanca, suggested that Milei had ingested “substances” during last year’s election campaign.
Mile’s office released a statement on Saturday condemning the comments, while also attacking Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
He accused Sanchez of “endangering Spanish women by allowing illegal immigration” and of undermining the integrity of Spain by making deals with separatists, and that his left-wing policies have brought “death and poverty”.
This provoked a rebuke from the Spanish Foreign Ministry, which stated that the terms used in the Argentine declaration “do not correspond to the relations between the two countries and fraternal peoples”.
Following the election of Milei, a right-wing populist who took over in December, relations between Argentina and Spain, governed by a left-wing coalition led by Sanchez’s Socialist Party, have cooled significantly.
Milei publicly supported the far-right anti-immigration Spanish party Vox.
