Latin America

hISTORY eNDS EVERYWHERE:

Argentina Is on a Path to Economic Success (Nouriel Roubini, 11/03/25, Project Syndicate)

Thus, heading into the recent legislative election, Argentina’s problem was about liquidity, not solvency. With electoral uncertainties weighing on growth this year – especially after the Peronist opposition performed better than expected in Buenos Aires’s provincial election in September – investors had grown nervous. Following a couple of corruption scandals and tactical mistakes on Milei’s part, the peso had weakened, despite interventions to keep the exchange rate within a set band. Domestic interest rates surged, Argentina’s sovereign spread widened significantly, and the stock market weakened. If the Peronists could take enough seats to wield an effective veto, Milei’s entire reform program could unravel.

But since Argentina’s problem was merely about liquidity, Milei sought and received a controversial $20 billion swap line from the US Treasury, whose support was conditional on him prevailing in the election. In the event, he and allied parties triumphed, picking up seats in both chambers. By fixating so much on electoral uncertainty, Milei’s political links to US President Donald Trump, and an overvalued exchange rate, the financial commentariat had ignored the promise of his radical fiscal and other reforms.

Now, for the first time in ages, Argentina may escape the policies that have repeatedly driven it into debt defaults and high inflation. After the most recent Peronist administration had pushed the country close to an inflation spiral and another default, Milei started cleaning up the mess with ruthless efficiency. While many have criticized his draconian approach, the results of the October election show that the Argentine people would prefer short-term economic pain over a return to Peronist policies.

FINALLY HAD ENOUGH PERONISM?:

Argentina’s Voters Hand Javier Milei a Crucial Victory in Midterm Election (Emma Bubola, Oct. 26, 2025, NY Times)

His party received over 40 percent of the vote, showing that despite pain inflicted by his austerity measures, many Argentines are still willing to back his libertarian experiment.

“Today we passed a turning point,” Mr. Milei told supporters on Sunday night, after coming onstage and singing a campaign song.

“Today begins the building of a great Argentina,” he said.

The victory gives Mr. Milei enough support in Congress to prevent his vetoes from being overridden, putting him in a strong position to further his ambitious agenda.

MSINOREP:

Milei’s Economic Miracle: How Argentina Slashed Inflation to 1.5% (Emmanuel Rincon, July 2, 2025, Daily economy)

Milei’s first step was balancing the budget. Through an aggressive program of public spending cuts, eliminating bureaucracy, and reducing public sector jobs, he erased Argentina’s massive fiscal deficit, paving the way for a historic economic recovery. Under his leadership, Argentina began taming inflation with rare fiscal discipline, not just regionally but globally. The latest data is astonishing: in May 2025, the consumer price index rose by just 1.5 percent, the lowest in five years. Remarkably, Milei achieved this without price controls but by liberalizing the economy, fostering market confidence, and slowing inflation. Annual inflation dropped from 211.4 percent in 2023 to 43.5 percent by mid-2025. Wholesale prices even fell by 0.3 percent in May, the best figure in 17 years. Poverty also declined sharply, from 52.9 percent in the first half of 2024 to 38.1 percent in the second, with UNICEF noting that 1.7 million children were lifted out of poverty since Milei took office.

These achievements were no fluke. They stemmed from a clear strategy: fiscal balance, reduced public spending, ending monetary expansion as a financing tool, and economic deregulation. The result? Greater stability, increased demand for the peso, falling inflation, and a rebound in employment and purchasing power.

That was easy enough.

BE MORE LIBERTARIAN:

From Anti-Communist Crusader to Authoritarian Copycat (John Mac Ghlionn, Jan 27, 2025, Discourse)

Only the most deluded of individuals could deny that the 54-year-old inherited an economy on the edge of ruin. In his first year, he implemented austerity measures and slashed government spending, cutting through Argentina’s bloated bureaucracy. His dollarization plan, while controversial, brought a semblance of stability to a currency afflicted with hyperinflation.

These are no small feats. His economic turnaround has earned him the respect of millions, both in Argentina and abroad. In a country where decades of corruption, reckless spending and mismanagement had left its people battered by runaway inflation and crippling debt, disillusionment ran deep. Successive leaders promised change but delivered little, as the gap between the rich and poor widened and basic essentials became luxuries for many. The economy was like the Titanic, already taking on water, and Milei stepped in just before it struck the iceberg. His bold, unorthodox approach seemed to offer a lifeline to a nation desperate for something—anything—different.

To stop the analysis there, however, would be intellectually dishonest. His success in economic reform does not absolve him of his deeply troubling authoritarian tendencies. […]

Just as Xi’s Great Firewall stifles dissent and controls information flow, Milei’s administration has rolled out measures designed to choke transparency and limit public access to critical information, with Decree 780/2024 standing out as a particularly egregious example. This decree grants the government sweeping oversight over media content under the guise of protecting public order and national security. It empowers authorities to monitor and penalize journalists for reporting that is deemed “subversive,” an ambiguously defined term that leaves ample room for subjective interpretation. Under the decree, headlines critical of the administration can be flagged as destabilizing or harmful, leading to fines, forced retractions or even criminal charges against journalists and media outlets.

ONE CUCKOO FLEW OVER:

Argentina Is Responding to Shock Therapy: He comes across like a madman, but Javier Milei is fast becoming the man of the moment. (Quico Toro, Dec 17, 2024, Persuasion)

Alongside a tax and cost-cutting spree, Javier Milei has gone on a kind of crusade against the thicket of regulatory nonsense that had colonized every bit of the Argentinian state. His economy minister launched a new mechanism to invite Argentinians to suggest useless rules to be done away with: in the first eight hours it was in operation, it received over 1,300 suggestions. The government deregulated everything from imports to labeling to apartment rentals. Its Deregulation Minister thundered at the mass of absurd regulations that meant importing, say, $30,000 dollars worth of toys required you to spend $10,000 on paperwork.

Argentinians may not have all turned into doctrinaire libertarians overnight, but they seem to have been catching on to the utility of the libertarian instinct. Faced with the mad mass of overbearing state interference in economic life, they seem to have accepted that you need a bit of a lunatic to cut through it: someone with the bombast and the pugnaciousness to fight the beast. In normal times, you’d surely prefer your president not to run around waving a chainsaw in the air like a madman, but Argentina left normal times so long ago the objection barely seems to even register.

Not, of course, that you can ever rest quite easy with a crazy person in charge of the government. Though he’s shown some signs of moderation in, for instance, restraining himself from calling Xi Jinping a murderous thug to his face, the way he used to, Javier Milei remains the edgelord he’s been all along: inveterately vituperative, revelling in insult, permanently itching for a fight. Treating bilateral relations with Spain the way a 14-year-old treats his first online fight, he called Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez “the torture poor Spaniards have to put up with.” His frustration-control, never strong, remains as flimsy as ever. As long as he stays in power, Argentina will always be one tweet-thread away from the next crisis.

But for the moment, Milei has had more successes than failures. He’s stabilized the currency, ended the deficit, tamed inflation, and made more progress in terms of structural reform than would’ve seemed imaginable a year ago. He’s managed to get enough support from a congress he doesn’t control to pass some important reforms, though he’s had to push much of his agenda through executive action. He’s pushing for a major new nuclear power plant building program to prepare Argentina for the AI future. Milei is a man with big plans, and it’s no longer obvious they will fail.