Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei won a decisive victory in the country’s midterm elections on Sunday, securing a vote of confidence in his free-market reforms and austerity measures, along with $20 billion in funding promised by his key ally, President Donald Trump.
Newsweek contacted the White House by email after office hours seeking comment.
Why It Matters
The outcome of the legislative election means the continuation of Milei’s austerity measures: slashing energy and transport subsidies, laying off tens of thousands of government workers, freezing public infrastructure projects, and imposing wage and pension freezes below inflation.
Trump directly tied the future of U.S. financial support to Milei’s success in the polls, warning: “If he doesn’t win, we’re gone.”
The U.S. bailout—an unusual $20 billion currency swap—aims to prop up the Argentine peso and more broadly stabilize a government seen as critical to U.S. influence in a region where China is expanding its reach.
What To Know
Sunday’s midterm vote was for 127 of the 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Argentina National Congress, and for a third of the Senate, or 24 of 72 seats in the upper house. Milei’s governing La Libertad Avanza party secured 64 seats in the Chamber and 12 in the Senate.
La Libertad Avanza won more than 40 percent of votes, according to tallies in media using numbers from electoral authorities with more than 97 percent of votes counted.
The left-leaning populist opposition movement, known as Peronism, won more than 31 percent of the vote in what analysts described as its poorest performance in years, the Associated Press reported.
Milei took to a stage at his party headquarters in downtown Buenos Aires and sang a few lines of the death-metal tune that has become his anthem: “I am the king of a lost world!”
Beaming as his supporters cheered, he seized on the results as evidence that Argentina had turned the page on decades of Peronism, when the country repeatedly defaulted on its sovereign debt.
“The Argentine people left decadence behind and opted for progress,” Milei told supporters in Spanish, according to the AP.
He thanked “all those who supported the ideas of freedom to make Argentina great again.”
Electoral authorities reported a turnout of almost 68 percent, among the lowest recorded since Argentina’s return to democracy in 1983.
Trump had earlier indicated that he could rescind the $20 billion in financial assistance if Milei lost Sunday’s vote.
“If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina,” Trump said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had earlier also announced plans to raise another $20 billion from private investors.
Milei, elected in 2023, has pushed austerity measures that have slashed public spending, ended central bank money printing and brought inflation down from 211 percent to roughly 32 percent in under a year.
The turnaround has earned him praise from international markets, but it has also driven interest rates to 80 percent and pushed unemployment higher. Real wages remain depressed and economic growth has stalled.
What People Are Saying
Argentina’s President Javier Milei told supporters, according to The Guardian: “Today we passed the tipping point—the construction of a great Argentina begins.”
Gustavo Cordoba, director of the Argentine Zuban Cordoba polling firm, told Reuters: “Many people were willing to give the government another chance…. We’ll see how much time Argentine society gives the Argentine government. But the triumph is unobjectionable, unquestionable.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a social media post on October 15: “President Milei has given Argentina a chance to end a decades-long decline under Peronism, and we hope Argentina seizes the opportunity under his leadership.”
What Happens Next
Argentina’s next presidential election is in October 2027.
This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.
