Pollsters expected a rejection of the anarcho-capitalist Argentinian President Javier Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, in Sunday’s midterm elections. Instead, the economist of the Austrian School turned politician’s coalition cleaned house, winning 41% of the national vote and doubling their representation in Congress. With this stunning victory, Milei has a clear mandate to expand his libertarian economic reforms that aim to save the nation’s economy from the damage done by several decades of Peronist communist rule.
Argentina was a cautionary tale when Milei was elected in 2023. The country was mired in generational hyperinflation. Monthly inflation hit 25.5% late that year, but by May 2025, monthly inflation was only 1.5%. Nearly 42% of Argentines were living in poverty, and Milei’s reforms precipitated a drop in the poverty rate to an estimated 31.7% as GDP growth climbed to 5.8% in the first quarter of this year. Inflation and poverty remain high by global standards, but it is clear that the Argentinian people understand that their president’s policies need time if the goal of transforming what was one of the most centralized economies in the Western Hemisphere into a bastion of economic liberty is to be realized.
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It doesn’t hurt to have the leader of the free world on your side. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump promised $20 billion in currency swaps and an additional $20 billion in private sector funding to aid the embattled Argentine economy, but he made the deal contingent on Milei’s party winning the midterm elections.
“Congratulations to President Javier Milei on his Landslide Victory in Argentina. He is doing a wonderful job! Our confidence in him was justified by the People of Argentina,” Trump posted early Monday morning on Truth Social.
Milei, who has long been friendly with the president, responded: “Thank you, President [Trump], for trusting the Argentine people. You are a great friend of the Argentine Republic. Our Nations should never have stopped being allies. Our peoples want to live in freedom. Count on me to fight for Western civilization, which has succeeded in lifting more than 90% of the world’s population out of poverty. MAGA.”
Javier Milei is certainly Argentina’s man for the moment. He’s a true economist’s economist who calls Ludwig von Mises “the greatest economist in history” and routinely quotes Human Action, Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, and Murray Rothbard’s Man, Economy, and State. He also understands that wholesale reforms such as the abolition of the country’s central bank will be an arduous process and that allying himself with Trump, and America generally, is his nation’s only hope, especially as many of Argentina’s South American neighbors are drifting further into China’s sphere of influence.
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Trump’s gamble on Milei is working out for all parties involved so far. Milei gets his mandate to continue his “chainsaw” reforms, Argentina receives its currency swaps, and the U.S. strengthens its alliance with what was and could again become one of the hemisphere’s most promising economies. America now has a South American counterweight to Chinese economic advances in countries like Brazil.
“I’m with this man because his philosophy is correct,” Trump said about Milei during a meeting between the two world leaders at the White House earlier this month. Trump is right; if Argentina’s economy can be saved, only a man with Milei’s philosophy can do it, and America should ally itself with anyone who seeks to restore economic freedom to populations that desperately need it.
Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a musician, political strategist, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.
