U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) will make a two-day trip to Buenos Aires starting on Sunday, May 25, to meet with President Javier Milei and other members of the Argentine government.
Kennedy, one of Donald Trump’s most vocal officials, expects to have a “substantive conversation” with Milei on how to advance U.S.-Argentina relations, according to a press release by the U.S. Embassy in Argentina.
He will also meet Health Minister Mario Lugones to discuss “healthcare reform and deregulation” and advance some objectives of his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) platform, which includes addressing chronic disease and finding a cure for autism.
MAHA has been criticized due to Kennedy’s history of spreading misinformation. Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, says there is a causal link between vaccines and autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), food allergies, cancer, and autoimmune diseases.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Milei also voiced his distrust of science and spread vaccine misinformation. In October 2021, the libertarian economist said that not all vaccines were “well tested” and had not gotten a dose. However, one month later, he was inoculated because he had to travel abroad to work. “What do I do? How can I make a living?” Milei said when justifying his decision. He was a lawmaker by then.
Kennedy will also meet Argentina’s Deregulation and Foreign Ministers, Federico Sturzenegger and Gerardo Werthein.
RFK Jr. is a member of the Kennedy family and comes from a long line of politicians. His father was Robert F. Kennedy, a former senator and U.S. attorney general who was murdered in 1968 while running for the presidential nomination. He is also the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963 in Dallas in arguably the most famous magnicide in history.
RFK Jr. was a lifelong Democrat until 2023, when he announced his candidacy as an independent for President of the United States. In August 2024, he dropped out and endorsed President Trump’s candidacy, a move some of his relatives called a “betrayal.”
