There has been a lot of talk about Argentina in the U.S. lately. President Trump recently said to a journalist that “Argentina’s fighting for its life,” later adding that “I think [President Milei] is trying to do the best he can. But don’t make it sound like they’re doing great.”
Trump is right: Argentina is not doing great. The country will hold its first midterm elections of the Javier Milei era this Sunday, Oct. 26. While Milei has improved much of the situation in the country, his chances of winning the seats in Congress needed to continue his reforms are a coin toss. The reasons include that the economic situation is still dire, the fact that Milei has made many mistakes, and that the Argentinian society never truly embraced free markets.
Javier Milei came to power in 2023 with a clear agenda: to deregulate and move towards economic freedom. This proposition sounded promising to many of us, and Milei achieved great results even with much of Congress against him.
He managed to dramatically lower inflation: before he took office in December 2023, inflation was 25.5% month-on-month, and 211.4% year-on year. During this time, prices changed daily if not hourly. I visited family in Argentina in early December 2023 and witnessed that stores didn’t even display prices anymore because they would change throughout the day. It was extremely challenging for locals to get by and do business this way.
As of September of this year, inflation was 2.1% month-on-month and 31.8% year-on-year—a dramatic change. Stores are back to displaying prices, and the economic climate is more stable and predictable.
Milei also passed reforms like eliminating rent controls, to great results. Unsurprisingly to the economically literate, rent prices went down and more properties became available to rent. This was a huge win for Argentina, and Milei took many other measures that improved the country.
But the economic situation is still dire. While some markers have improved (e.g.: the poverty rate went from 41.7% in 2023 to 31.6% this year), this stabilization process has been painful. The adjustment brought a deep contraction in 2024, big utility bill hikes, and stagnating incomes that only started clawing back in 2025. Inflation has improved, but it’s still high. Even after a mid-2025 bounce, economic activity has slowed in late 2025 amid high rates and reserve requirements. Surviving under these conditions is still tough for Argentinians, and they are getting impatient.
Argentinians have historically voted with their pockets. With a 31% poverty rate, many voters can’t afford to think long-term—they need to pay rent next month, and may turn to politicians who promise fast solutions with long-term consequences.
Milei has made mistakes in many areas, too, including regarding legislative strategy and his strained relationship with many governors. Many note that he has mishandled some economic aspects as well. But one of the most impactful mistakes is one that led to serious accusations of corruption in his government.
In early 2025, Milei promoted a new “memecoin” called $LIBRA on his social media accounts as a private initiative to fund Argentinian entrepreneurs. The token’s price spiked and then rapidly crashed, prompting criminal complaints, market, turmoil, and a court investigation into whether his promotion aided a scheme run by the token’s organizers. Milei denied wrongdoing and claimed he “shared,” not “promoted,” a business intending to invest in Argentina. But his “sharing” of this scheme shows negligence at best, and corruption at worst.
Many are disappointed in Milei, who ran on ending corruption and the privileges of the political class. The issue is with the courts still, and corruption allegations haven’t been proven, but this has damaged his image considerably anyway. (Another alleged corruption scandal recently impacted his administration due to supposed bribes his sister—Milei’s closest advisor—allegedly took.)
Milei has also driven away many voters by engaging in threatening and proto-authoritarian rhetoric against the press and his political enemies. While it’s true that some journalists’ coverage of his administration has been biased and unfair, and that many of his political enemies are evil, many Argentinians rightly perceive Milei’s rhetoric and manners as unpresidential and a threat to freedom of speech.
The events in the first two years of the Milei presidency are important context. But to truly understand what’s going on in Argentina, and how the future of Milei’s project may play out, one must understand how Argentina’s society thinks of his ideas.
Milei’s agenda of deregulation and free markets was unheard-of in deeply statist Argentina. I was born and raised there, and I never thought I’d see the day when Argentina elected a pro free-market president. But his election wasn’t the result of a sudden embrace of freedom. It was the result of the Peronists leading Argentina down the same path as Venezuela. Argentinians reacted to that and sought to put in power the candidate expressing the opposite ideas. That was Milei.
Milei did a good job educating the public about the free market. But most people’s vote was a reaction to the left. It wasn’t a principled vote. That’s partly what explains that they’re running out of patience for long-term solutions and many are ready to go back to quick but detrimental fixes with the Peronists (like printing money nonstop).
This midterm election will determine whether Milei’s deregulation project will proceed or come to a halt. While I disagree with Milei on many things, I want a well-implemented deregulation agenda to succeed and bring about economic freedom to a once-prosperous country brought to its knees by statism.
Agustina Vergara Cid is a columnist for the Southern California News Group and a Young Voices contributor. You can follow her on X at @agustinavcid