Argentines cast their ballots on Sunday in midterm elections, which attracted a remarkable amount of international interest. This was in part due to Washington’s potential $40 billion bailout of Buenos Aires, which the country had promised. Donald Trump, the president of the United States, made it clear that the cash injection would depend on the results of the election.
And Javier Milei, Trump’s far-right pal and the country’s uniquely coiffed president, delivered on time. More than 40% of the votes cast went to La Libertad Avanza, a partid that Milliei’s party, in early voting, to claim a rather startling victory. A third of the Senate seats and the lower chamber of deputies in Argentina were up for grabs.
Naturally, Trump made no mistaken claim by appropriating Milei’s victory as a personal victory, claiming that she “had a lot of help from us.” He was greatly helped.
Trump claimed before the election that his generous gesture to Milei, which was made even as the US president was overseeing extensive home-based healthcare cuts, was his own way of “helping a great philosophy take over a great country.”
Similar to Scott Bessent, US Treasury Secretary, claimed that Milei’s “bridge” was being built in hopes that “Argentina can be great again.”
Call it the South American version of MAGA.
It’s not quite clear when, exactly, in history Argentina was ever so “great,” as is the case with the US itself. Of course, there were the days of the US-backed Dirty War, when a right-wing military dictatorship murdered and disappeared tens of thousands of suspected leftists who had been dropped from aircraft into the ocean or Rio de la Plata.
In his biography of the late US diplomat Henry Kissinger, historian Greg Grandin put it in his 1976 advice to the junta’s foreign minister, Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti, “If there are things that need to be done, you should do them quickly.”
Another outstanding “philosophy.”
Trump is now on the verge of resuming the US’s influence in the South American nation. There is still room for right-wing brutality even though the days of dropping bodies from airplanes may be over.
Milei, who self-identifies as an “anarcho-capitalist” and became president in 2023, has a sweet habit of slicing the chainsaw at political rallies to represent his method of governance, which has resulted in mass layoffs and pension cuts, as well as slashing spending on healthcare, education, and other public services.
During Milei’s austerity program, poverty reached a high of nearly 53% in Argentina during the first six months. The price of goods has decreased, as do purchasing power, and most Argentines do not make enough money to cover their monthly expenses, according to surveys. Pardon, Trump’s victory on Sunday helped to keep the “chainsaw” strategy alive, which has in any case worked out well for some elite sections of the populace in Argentina.
Less than 15% of the seats in Congress were previously held by Milei’s party. In consequence, the president was left to run his own business by an opposition that fought to overturn his vetoes on issues like restoring congressional funding for pediatric healthcare and universities.
Trump’s heart is forever invested in Milei’s sociopathic efforts, and the US president has repeatedly defended him by saying, “Everyone knows he’s doing the right thing. However, you have a very dangerous group of people called “radical-left sick,” who are trying to make him look bad.
It’s true, a “radical-left sick culture” needs to advocate for people with disabilities or for children to receive medical attention.
In addition, Milei’s government has successfully used tear gas and rubber bullets to protest violent austerity measures and increase the number of Argentinians who have disabilities. Jonathan Navarro, 33, protested for his father and other retirees in one eye with a rubber bullet in March.
Trump, on the other hand, recently made a friendly joke to Milei about the possibility of sending Tomahawk missiles to Argentina: “You need them for your opposition, I guess. The Argentinian president proposed a $1 million initiative to improve relations between Latin America and the genocidal state in August. Trump and Milei also have views on Israel.
The list goes on and on. Trump has never opposed corruption or nepotism, as long as he is the one who benefits, so Milei made a quick choice by appointing his own sister as secretary-general. Karina Milei has played the leading role in one of the scandals that allegedly threatened to undermine his party’s performance in Sunday’s midterm elections.
Diego Spagnuolo, the then head of Argentina’s National Disability Agency, was reportedly the subject of bribes Karina Milei allegedly pocketed in exchange for pharmaceutical contracts involving the procurement of medications for people with disabilities in leaked audio recordings in August.
Only a “radical-left sick culture” would have been affected by this arrangement, in any case.
Impoverished Argentinians have a lot to lose, especially now that Milei’s unhinged free-market experiment has a new lease of life. However, as Trump stated in his victory speech after the results were released, “We’ve made a lot of money based on that election because the bonds have gone up.” Their overall rating for debt has increased.
The president continued, noting that the US was “not in that for the money, per se.” Remember those words as Argentina once more ascended to greatness.
