From Madrid to MAGA: How Spain’s Vox forged a right-wing network with global reach

From Madrid to MAGA: How Spain’s Vox forged a right-wing network with global reach The Spanish party has forged strong links among far-right groups stretching from Buenos Aires to Washington — and is wielding growing influence in Brussels. By AITOR HERNÁNDEZ-MORALESin Madrid Photo-illustration by Ben Tallon for POLITICO With Hungary’s Viktor Orbán gone, Spain’s nationalist Vox party is set to play an increasingly central role as a bridge linking Europe’s far right to political allies worldwide — from South America to MAGA in Washington. Unlike Orbán’s Fidesz or Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France, which have spent decades shaping national and European politics, Vox is a relative newcomer, having only entered Spain’s parliament in 2019. But it is a force on the march. Pollsters expect Vox to double its parliamentary representation in Spain’s upcoming Nov. 29 election, potentially making it an indispensable partner in a coalition government led by conservative People’s Party chief Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Advertisement If the polls hold true, Vox would then arrive in government with an outsized global influence relative to its domestic footprint — all thanks to an international network it has quietly cultivated over the past few years. Through its Madrid-based Disenso Foundation, the party has established ties with Latin American leaders such as Argentina’s Javier Milei and Chile’s José Antonio Kast, while forging relationships with influential figures in the MAGA movement in Washington. Though distinct, the movements are bound by a common rejection of the political establishment. “This isn’t about occupying more space. This is a movement,” Jorge Martín Frías, a Vox member of the European Parliament and director of the Disenso Foundation, told POLITICO in Madrid. Vox’s allies, the lawmaker said, “face the same obstacles, the same labels, the same desire to annihilate them … And that’s how a sense of brotherhood develops.” Vox leader Santiago Abascal and Jordan Bardella, president of France’s National Rally, in Ceuta on Oct. 12, 2026. | Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images That same spirit of cooperation has helped Vox establish itself as a trusted partner to Europe’s right. Its leader, Santiago Abascal, now heads Patriots.eu, the pan-European political group that brings together Fidesz and the National Rally, as well as other far-right parties like Italy’s Lega, Belgium’s Vlaams Belang and Portugal’s Chega. Frank Furedi, president of the Brussels-based Freedom & Sovereignty Initiative Europe, a conservative think tank formed by the core team behind MCC Brussels, said Vox had “been remarkably effective in carving out a niche for themselves as a movement that’s open to other political forces.” Guillermo Fernández Vázquez, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University, said Vox’s strategy had allowed it to amass international influence well beyond what its electoral strength would suggest. Advertisement “Vox is an electorally modest party in the European context of the far right,” he said. “But it’s nonetheless become a communications node, a bridge, a hinge between the new Latin American right, the European far right and the Trumpist right.” Across the Atlantic Vox has been vocal about its interest in Ibero-America, which comprises Spain, Portugal and the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries of the Americas. The “continent of hope,” Martín Frías says, is “already ahead of Europe, including in economic terms,” pointing to Milei’s chainsaw approach to deregulation in Argentina and Kast’s efforts to attract foreign investment in Chile through tax incentives and regulatory changes. Right-wing leaders on the continent “are showing that it is possible to challenge the politics of resignation that have prevailed here — the status quo of the People’s Party and the Socialists,” he added. Abascal hugs Argentina’s President Javier Milei at a Vox rally in Madrid on May 19, 2024. | Óscar de