Opposition posters across Buenos Aires before Sunday’s midterms depicted Javier Milei’s name over a US flag, invoking anti‑American sentiment after accusations of Donald Trump’s interference in Argentina’s election. Days before voting, the US president announced a $40bn bailout for Argentina and warned he would withdraw support if Milei lost.
Despite a difficult stretch in office — an economic downturn and corruption allegations — Milei won decisively, taking roughly 41% of the vote to his nearest rival’s 32%, a margin few opinion polls anticipated. His party, La Libertad Avanza, combined with seats from the centre‑right PRO (the party of former president Mauricio Macri), has moved from a modest congressional presence to a working majority.
The scale of the victory left many Argentines wondering whether it reflected durable domestic support or the effect of what some called economic coercion tied to US assistance. “I know that the US bailout will bring some stability, but I also know that if the US has to let go of your hand at some point, it will,” said Agustin Cantilo, a 30‑year‑old broker from Tigre who voted for Milei twice. “If there’s one party I will never, ever vote for in my life, it’s Peronism; that said, what matters most to me now is stability. Milei is fixing the macro issues that matter to Argentines: low inflation, a stable dollar … We’ve never had economic stability.”
A demonstrator in Buenos Aires held a sign showing Donald Trump and Javier Milei.
Milei’s signature austerity program — his self‑styled “chainsaw” cuts — helped bring annual inflation down from well over 200% to about 30%. While still high by global standards, that decline is the sharpest Argentina has seen in years. At the same time, Milei has used dollar reserves to prop up the peso, prompting an International Monetary Fund package worth $20bn (about $14bn disbursed so far) and the recent US bailout.
Those policies have consequences: a surge in imports has strained local industry and commerce; purchasing power has fallen, real wages have declined, more than 200,000 jobs have been lost and roughly 18,000 businesses have closed since Milei took office in December 2023.
Hernán Letcher, director of the Centre for Argentine Political Economy (CEPA), said the result surprised analysts not only because polls missed it but because social indicators have not improved. “We often say in Argentina that a cheap dollar wins elections,” he added, pointing to a mixture of falling inflation, fear of reverting to deep crises and entrenched anti‑Peronist sentiment as drivers of Milei’s support.
Sociologist Juan Gabriel Tokatlian argued Milei’s campaign successfully spread the idea that a loss would trigger economic collapse, creating a climate of panic among voters anxious to avoid another devaluation. There had been some hope within Peronism that alleged US interference might backfire — as punitive actions by the US helped boost incumbents in other countries — but Tokatlian said those cases differ: in Canada and Brazil US measures were punitive and provoked backlash, whereas in Argentina the US acted generously, and for some voters that generosity served as assurance against catastrophic economic outcomes.
Not everyone accepts the trade‑offs. Aquiles Ferrario, 82, who runs a Buenos Aires bookshop specialising in imported art and design volumes, voted for Peronism and said he was alarmed that fear, rather than anger at government behavior, seemed to guide many ballots. “What worries me is the future of our children, grandchildren and their successors — that they might end up living openly in a colony of the US, which I believe is the status that corresponds to a country whose economic and geopolitical policy depends entirely on the US and on a figure such as Donald Trump,” he said.
The result leaves Argentina facing a contested future: a government that promises macroeconomic stability and closer ties with the US, but one whose policies have already reshaped jobs, industry and living standards. Many Argentines now must weigh short‑term stability against long‑term sovereignty and the social costs of rapid market reforms.
