World


New president uses Trump policies to turn around his troubled nation. A BY JOHN FUND


rgentina is a 10-hour flight from Washington, D.C., so the election in 2023 of radical free-market


economics professor Javier Milei as its new president did not resonate with many Americans. But Milei’s landslide win over


an entrenched left-wing political machine founded by Juan and Evita Perón in the 1940s — and immortal- ized in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Evita — matters because it is providing lessons on how to deal with serious economic problems, a deep state bureaucracy, and a cyni- cal population that has abandoned hope in institutions. Sound a little like the U.S.?


Nigel Farage, the populist hero of Brexit in Britain, and President-elect Donald Trump are fervent admirers of Milei. Trump and Milei could not con- tain their excitement after meeting at the Conservative Political Action Con- ference in Washington last February.


GOVERNMENT WASTE Like Trump, Milei has mastered both performance art and social media. A former singer for a Rolling


Stones tribute band, Milei brandished a chain saw at his election rallies to demonstrate how he would chop up “useless” government ministries. During his own campaign, Trump


42 NEWSMAX | JANUARY 2025


introduced billionaire supporter Elon Musk as someone he would empower to head a Department of Government Efficiency to cut wasteful spending. To critics who complained about


his behavior, Milei’s first foreign min- ister, Diana Mondino, had a crisp answer: “If Javier combed his hair neatly, if Javier didn’t get angry, would people ever have invited him to speak?” Milei seems to have internalized


an observation once made by the late Gov. Mario Cuomo: “A leader cam- paigns in poetry and then governs in prose.” He knows he was elected because


a continuing series of economic crises had left enough voters angry or des- perate enough to vote for him as the


Inflation has fallen to 2.5% a month, a major departure from the soaring prices that were ravaging Argentina at a rate of almost 300% last year and heading toward hyperinflation.


only possible alternative. They were voting against the crises


and the political class they blamed for it, rather than for a detailed laundry list of Milei’s libertarian ideas.


FISCAL SURPLUS In his inauguration speech, Milei warned Argentines of hard times, declaring that “there is no money.” He immediately fired thousands of bureaucrats, cut spending, and deval- ued the peso by over 50% (which ini- tially pushed up inflation). Meanwhile, public salaries and pen-


sions were held down, slashing their real value. As a result, Argentina has enjoyed its first fiscal surpluses in years. Inflation has fallen to 2.5% a month,


a major departure from the soaring prices that were ravaging Argentina at a rate of almost 300% last year and heading toward hyperinflation.


AMERICAN ALLY He has also mastered the art of sym- bolism. On the foreign stage, Milei replaced an anti-American Peronist regime that was cozy with U.S. adver- saries.


China, Argentina’s second-biggest


trading partner, had growing influ- ence over the country’s valuable shale and lithium reserves and operates a military-run space station there that Argentine officials have no access to. Milei called China an “assassin”


MAGA/TOMAS CUESTA/GETTY IMAGES / MILEI/TOMAS CUESTA/GETTY IMAGES


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100