By Daniel Politi, Lucía Cholakian Herrera and Ana Ionova
At home and abroad, Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, is a man with plenty of fans. And not just any fans.
Milei, a right-wing libertarian, may not have been an obvious choice as the first world leader to meet President-elect Donald Trump after his election victory. Yet there he was, at Mar-a-Lago in Florida last month, being showered with praise by Trump.
“The job you’ve done is incredible,” Trump told Milei at a gala for a right-wing research institute. “You’ve done a fantastic job in a very short period of time.”
Many Argentines seem to agree. A year after taking office, Milei is viewed favorably by about 56% of Argentines, according to a recent poll, making him one of the most popular presidents in the country’s recent history.
“This is the president that God brought for the Argentines,” said Marcelo Capobianco, 54, a butcher in Buenos Aires. “He brought back hope.”
While a cascade of brutal cuts to everything from soup kitchens to bus fare subsidies have pushed more than 5 million Argentines into poverty, they have also helped Milei make remarkable progress on a daunting task: reining in the world’s highest inflation rate.
Before Milei was sworn in, monthly inflation was 12.8%; now it is 2.4%, the lowest in four years.
Milei has followed through on bold promises to bring Argentina’s budget under control, firing more than 30,000 government workers and applying deep cuts to spending on health, welfare and education.
Before he took office, Milei’s critics questioned whether a former television pundit, who describes himself as an anarcho-capitalist, could lift Argentina out of its decade-long crisis.
In some ways, their concerns have been borne out. Milei’s unorthodox governing approach has plunged Argentina into a chaotic new chapter, as poverty rates have jumped and people have taken to the streets in protest.
“Every day, we have more people who come to eat,” said Margarita Barrientos, 63, who runs a soup kitchen in a working-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires.
But there are also signs that Milei’s strategy is working. In addition to plunging inflation, government revenue exceeds spending for the first time in 16 years and preliminary data suggest that the economy, after contracting for three consecutive quarters, is stabilizing and may be on track to slowly start growing.
“Happy times are coming in Argentina,” Milei said this week during an address commemorating his first year in office. He promised “sustained growth” in 2025, vowing that the country’s sacrifice “will not be in vain.”
Global investors have cheered Milei’s actions, with Bank of America declaring in a financial report that his “stabilization plan is working better than expected.”
The International Monetary Fund predicted that Argentina’s yearly inflation would fall to a more manageable 45% in 2025 from a record peak of 211% in 2023 and commended Milei on his “impressive progress.”
Argentina’s inflation figures have sometimes been questioned after past administrations were caught fudging the numbers. But the national statistics agency was overhauled in 2015, so today the figures are widely seen as credible and hew to independent estimates.
For many ordinary Argentines, however, Milei’s economic triage has been painful. His government has cut state spending by about a third, eliminating price controls and subsidies that made public transit, heating bills and groceries cheaper, leaving more people struggling to make ends meet.
Still, many see a silver lining to the government’s austerity measures.
Miguel Valderrama, who owns a small market in Buenos Aires, said he’s relieved to no longer have to endure the unchecked inflation that defined daily life before Milei’s presidency.
“There was a price in the morning, and at noon everything increased again — and again two days later,” said Valderrama, 40, who voted for Milei.
Now, with greater stability, he is able to plan his inventory without worrying about sudden price shocks. “Before,” he said, “we didn’t know how much money we would spend, how much things would cost.”
Milei’s rise to power followed decades of boom-and-bust cycles. Argentina was among the world’s wealthiest countries, but years of government mismanagement emptied its public coffers, led to multiple defaults on tens of billions of dollars in international loans and left the economy limping.
“Argentina stopped growing in 2012,” said Marina Dal Poggetto, executive director of EcoGo, a consultancy based in Argentina.
Milei, casting himself as an outsider, blamed Argentina’s economic travails on corrupt politicians who spent recklessly, describing political opponents as “thieves” who live like “monarchs.”
He warned that if he were elected president things would most likely get worse before they got better. Still, his promises appealed to many Argentines hungry for change.
Milei’s more radical plans as a candidate included closing Argentina’s central bank and abandoning the peso in favor of the U.S. dollar. But once in power, he did neither, and his policies have been far less drastic than many expected.
“The initial outlines of Milei’s program were much more reasonable than his campaign rhetoric,” Dal Poggetto said. “They were pragmatic, very pragmatic.”
But Milei’s work to tackle the country’s long-running financial challenges has angered many Argentines, sparking large demonstrations over pension cuts, rising prices and slashed university budgets.
Roberto Bejerano, 68, a retired taxi driver, said he could afford only the bare essentials on his monthly pension payments and had to give up small pleasures like dining out and buying books.
“They’re laughing in our faces when they say we’re better off” because of the government’s tough economic medicine, Bejerano said. “You don’t see it in your wallet.”
He said it troubled him that Milei “is so popular when there are so many of us who are suffering.”
Some analysts cautioned that Milei’s financial policies, including controls on foreign exchange rates, have helped prop up the peso but were making Argentina’s exports, like metals, soy and beef, less competitive.
Critics also warned that Milei’s aggressive cuts could ultimately stifle growth. Less investment in universities, research centers and hospitals could “weaken Argentina’s social and economic foundation in the long run,” said Martín Kalos, director of EPyCA Consultores, an economic consultancy.
Still, experts say Milei has succeeded in achieving the most pressing task: averting a deeper inflation spiral. And, for now, many Argentines appear to be willing to give Milei time to continue his sweeping economic overhaul.
“People feel there are certain things that had to be done,” said Mariel Fornoni a political analyst who runs Management and Fit, a polling firm. “Then, there’s the question of how much their wallets can take.”
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