COMMENTARY Donald Trump admires Argentine President Javier Milei — so why is Trump pushing economic policies so divorced from the commonsense approach of what's being called the Milei Miracle?
Here are two, Argentina-related questions that President Trump’s supporters might ask a Trump critic like myself:
Does Javier Milei the populist bully still scare the democrat’s bejesus out of me?
You bet your Malbec he does.
But has Javier Milei the libertarian economist impressed the inflation-weary consumer in me?
You bet your asado he has.
And that second Q&A is the one that Trumpistas should pay particular attention to, since Trump looks to Milei as his south-of-the-border touchstone.
I had serious doubts about Milei, both politically and economically, when he was running for, and won, Argentina’s presidency two years ago.
But while I continue to grimace at Milei’s vulgar and reactionary demagoguery, like his knuckle-dragging assertion this year that all LGBTQ persons are “pedophiles,” I humbly admit that his economic orthodoxy crusade has brought welcome order to Argentina’s fiscal chaos.
READ MORE: Good morning, American liberals. Welcome to your Milei moment
Fortunately, Milei hasn’t yet carried out what he called the “non-negotiable” plank of his economic platform — abolishing Argentina’s central bank, which would be a recklessly autocratic move. But what Milei in fact has done has in fact worked.
When Milei took office at the end of 2023, Argentina was in negative economic growth territory, and its annual inflation rate was a wage-ravaging 300%. More than half the population was living in poverty. Public debt was a millstone around the national neck — almost 90% of GDP.
This year, growth is forecast to top 5%. Inflation could fall tenfold. Less than 40% of Argentines now occupy the poverty zone. The debt-GDP ratio has dropped significantly — including Argentina’s first budget surpluses in more than a decade.
And because Milei has scrapped onerous capital and currency controls, the International Monetary Fund has re-opened the bailout spigot for his country this year.
Why does Trump think his erratic tariffs regime will yield the economic success story Milei is celebrating — when it's the antithesis of what Milei is practicing?
The big driver of what everyone’s calling the “Milei Miracle” is, in reality, macroeconomic common sense. It’s the kind of reality-based policy push the Peronists — the long-ruling center-left party that maverick Milei ousted in 2023 — erased from their manual decades ago. It’s an antidote to the whiplash cycle of boom-and-bust that has garnered Argentina even worse reviews in the financial markets than Evita got from film critics.
So here, then, is where I get to ask Trump supporters a question:
Chainsaw antics
Given that Milei is one of the few Latin American leaders the U.S. leader admires — if not emulates, when you consider Trump took much of Milei’s 2023 playbook for his 2024 comeback campaign — why is Trump pursuing an economic strategy so divorced from what’s made his Argentine amigo so successful?
Why does Trump think his erratic tariffs regime — the antithesis of Milei’s free trade-and-open markets thesis — will yield the kind of growth-promoting, inflation-busting news story Buenos Aires is basking in right now?
And why does Trump keep believing this, even when economic data, not just economic theorizers, are starting to indicate his trade-war-of-the-worlds campaign will in fact dampen growth and drive inflation?
No matter how many federal data directors Trump fires, the anemic 2.2% U.S. economic growth forecast he’s been railing at is just as real as the robust 5.5% estimate Milei is taking credit for.
No matter how many corporate executives Trump threatens, the rising, tariff-related costs U.S. consumers are paying are as unmistakable as the falling prices Argentines are enjoying.
The reason is simple: while Trump is slapping up to 50% tariffs on important trading partners like Canada, Brazil and India, so he can work out his the-world-is-screwing-America issues, Milei — despite all his loony chainsaw antics — is smacking down those kinds of barriers so he can neutralize what was screwing Argentina.
That’s not to say there aren’t mines as well as miracles on the Milei landscape. Thanks to his overzealous public-sector slashing, Argentina’s unemployment rate has leapt to almost 8% this year, the highest level since the pandemic.
But even that Milei misstep should make Trump reconsider his own DOGE assault on federal employment — and how it’s significantly dragging down the U.S. job growth figures he bawled about last week.
It's of course still too soon to say just how badly Trump’s duties will spoil America’s solid economy, or if it really will spoil it.
Still, Trump and his supporters should look south — where his fellow populist bully is celebrating triumph without tariffs.
You can watch Tim Padgett's video commentary Americas Decoded here.
