After all the hoopla touting the BRICS organization of China-led nations as the next big thing, Argentina has thrown a middle finger to China's big idea.

They won't join.

According to Politico:

Argentina will not join the BRICS grouping of developing nations, the country’s incoming foreign minister said Thursday.

“We will not join the BRICS,” said Diana Mondino, who will serve as top diplomat in the government of President-elect Javier Milei when he is sworn into office next week.

Argentina was one of the six countries invited to become new members of the bloc, comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, at its annual summit in Johannesburg in August.

Seems the prospect of joining the world's most-touted club of nations in the press isn't the no-lose proposition it was billed.

The Argentines recognized what was going on -- they might gain certain investments and plaudits as the Next Big Thing in the short term. But long term, they become China's little pawn in its big global power game it is playing to become the world's most powerful nation, supplanting the U.S. Argentina would rather make its own decisions about what agenda it will follow, thank you very much.

I'm guessing that Argentina's newly sworn-in libertarian president, Javier Milei, was playing a power game of his own with the Chicoms. He denounced China as a bunch of  'communists' during his campaign and said he didn't want to make deals with them on a government basis because their philosophy was so disgusting (though private sector trade was fine). 

Instead of scream back at him, the Chicoms, knowing that its global prestige was at stake as Milei stated the obvious about them like the little boy at the naked emperor, and hastened to sidle up in a friendly way to Milei by congratulating him upon his election. Milei accepted the congratulations with equanimity, apparently knowing that they wanted Argentina to stay in their BRICS alliance --- and then delivered the knockout blow. 

Score: Argentina: 1, China 0. 

Goooool.

What he showed here to the rest of the world's crummy regimes is that he intends to align with the United States and its model -- in trade, in dollarization, in free market reforms, in rule of law --and not China's. He'd probably like to surpass the U.S. in freedoms and prosperity, given that his goal is to make Argentina as rich as it used to be before the scourge of fascism, Peronism, and socialism laid that country low. To make oneself like America as Argentina once was, one must go with that model and then build from there. Milei seems to understand this perfectly.

That's an incredible gift to the prestige of the United States and its model that Joe Biden won't recognize, but an incoming President Trump will.

In the meantime, China has got to be smarting from this rejection of its big plan to draw a slew of highly regarded developing nations into its orbit, claiming it's a democratic association, but with China in fact calling the shots.

Milei could see that.

Sorry, China, Argentina is going to make itself great again. That doesn't include getting ordered around by China or copying its model.

Watch other nations follow.

Image: OpenClipart // Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Public Domain License