Three times in the past year Santiago Abascal has written a tweet congratulating one of his allies in the American continent who, after going to the polls, rose to power. “Congratulations to my dear friend and ally José Antonio Kast, new president-elect of the Republic of Chile,” he posted in December 2025. Last month the other two congratulations arrived: to Keiko Fujimori, winner of the Peruvian elections, and to Abelardo de la Espriella, who emerged victorious in Colombia. The three had met with Abascal, or had participated in Vox events, some time before rising to power: they are three of the bets the Spanish party has been making in recent years in the American continent, and now, by rising to power, they increase their value and give Abascal’s international network greater weight.
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Kast, Fujimori and De la Espriella have joined this year the list of Ibero-American presidents allied with Vox, in which the Argentine Javier Milei holds a prominent position. Abascal has also maintained contact with the president of Paraguay, Santiago Peña, and last year he congratulated Rodrigo Paz on his victory in the Bolivian elections, so the map of Vox sympathizers already reaches a good part of the power in the Ibero-American territory. It is one of the successes the party claims, the result of a bet to weave an international network of alliances that has always been among Abascal’s strategic priorities.
“Long before Vox was born, some of those who are now in Vox warned about the left’s networks of influence throughout Ibero-America,” reflect sources from the party, who place the origin of the Spanish party’s efforts to forge ties across the Atlantic in confronting those networks. “Abascal had the idea that the Disenso foundation should be dedicated to combating those networks, not only by denouncing them but by creating our own networks to confront” organizations like the São Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group – “which have sheltered the ideas and power of the old communism” -, add the same sources. Opposition to these organizations is common in Abascal’s discourse, who on several occasions has referred to them in his replies to Pedro Sánchez in Congress. “The Atlantic link is essential for Spain against the threats posed by regimes and transnational crime organizations,” they value from Disenso.
In 2020, the party launched this foundation, which today delegates most of the design and execution of its international strategy. “The idea was that, from Disenso, Vox would be the bond uniting parties, organizations, companies, and the academic world throughout the Iberosphere,” they convey from the headquarters on Bambú street. One of the first initiatives promoted by the Vox foundation was Foro Madrid, an alliance that in turn promoted the signing of the Madrid Charter, a declaration “in defense of freedom and democracy in the Iberosphere” to which various international leaders have adhered. Among the first to do so: Milei, “a great unknown at that time.”
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That is, perhaps, one of the keys to Vox’s international roadmap: betting on like-minded leaders even when their reach is very limited, trusting that in the future they will be relevant profiles. Abascal noticed Milei when he barely scraped 5% of the votes; Kast, when he only gathered 8%. “Vox began building these alliances as early as 2020, with a long-term vision that today proves to be correct,” they value from Disenso.
Its ties with Ibero-American leaders – many of them presidents today – have also served Vox to act as “glue” between both sides of the Atlantic which, according to reflections in Bambú, has also benefited them at the European level – “it is no coincidence that Abascal is the president of the Patriots party,” sources from Vox convey. All this, they believe, gives them “leadership,” “recognition,” and “an enormous capacity for influence” which, they consider, could be key in the future. The Spanish party trusts to be a “governing political force” in the coming years and, once that point is reached, they intend to “use all the networks created for the benefit of Spain’s interest.”
Sources from Vox describe their “dialogue” with presidents and governments of Ibero-America as “direct” and point out that these “greatly appreciate” the contribution the Spanish party brings them, “both in organization and in dialogue with other countries and European governments and also with Washington.” Donald Trump is another of the American presidents that Abascal has in his network of alliances, although in recent days he has distanced himself from the American leader due to his attacks on the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. That is one of the nuances that Vox has integrated into its international roadmap: that alliances can be sustained on what is shared despite other disagreements.
