Argentine President Javier Milei is an unusual politician. The former television personality is perhaps the only world leader in generations who would describe himself as a libertarian. He’s certainly the first ever to identify as an “ anarcho-capitalist .” He has a fiery disposition and is known for bluntly insulting his opponents. He frequently engages in stunts such as dressing as the superhero “ General AnCap ” or revving a chain saw in public to show his commitment to slashing the size of government. His proposed policies and statements as he ran for Argentina’s presidency matched his outlandish behavior. He proposed radical market-oriented reforms, the complete elimination of several huge government agencies, and a total break from politics as usual.
Argentine President Javier Milei is an unusual politician. The former television personality is perhaps the only world leader in generations who would describe himself as a libertarian. He’s certainly the first ever to identify as an “anarcho-capitalist.” He has a fiery disposition and is known for bluntly insulting his opponents. He frequently engages in stunts such as dressing as the superhero “General AnCap” or revving a chain saw in public to show his commitment to slashing the size of government. His proposed policies and statements as he ran for Argentina’s presidency matched his outlandish behavior. He proposed radical market-oriented reforms, the complete elimination of several huge government agencies, and a total break from politics as usual.
Milei is a weird guy, but Argentina is a country with peculiar problems. Since Milei won the election in November, the world has held its collective breath waiting to see what the outlandish, bizarre, extreme candidate would look like as a president. Surprisingly, Milei’s first two months in office have been mostly sensible and promising. But behind the encouraging policy changes, there’s still the potential for a troubling authoritarian turn.
No area sums up the cognitive dissonance that Milei inspires better than climate change. Milei campaigned as a full-blown climate change denier. He said that “politicians who blame the human race for climate change are fake” and called the very idea of climate change a “socialist hoax.” And yet as president, his top climate diplomat confirmed that Argentina will remain in the Paris climate agreement. He even included a new cap-and-trade plan to limit carbon emissions in his omnibus reform bill. Observers could be forgiven for having whiplash—even for Milei, the turnaround on climate has been dramatic. This is hardly the only issue where Milei’s rhetoric and his actions are surprisingly divergent. So how should we judge Milei—by his outlandish campaign statements, or by his restrained actions once in office?
As you’d expect from a radical candidate, Milei has made a huge number of policy changes since coming to power. Many of those changes are badly needed economic reforms. He’s lifted import restrictions, ended many price controls, scrapped rent regulations, cut expensive energy subsidies, and adjusted the exchange rate.
Argentina’s economy has been beset by intrusive over-regulation, barriers to trade, and poor management for decades. The country’s exchange rate is a sham, with a technically illegal but widely tolerated black market in U.S. dollars where greenbacks cost twice as many pesos as the government rate. The government routinely overspends and accumulates debt it’s unable to pay back—Argentina has defaulted on its debt nine times, including three times in the last 20 years. And that spending is dominated not by smart investments, technology, or infrastructure, but by wasteful subsidies and an enormous public sector that employs one of every three working Argentines.
The result has been low economic growth, high inflation, and economic instability. That grim reality shows how crucial market-oriented reforms are for Argentina’s economy, and some of them are already showing results. Housing availability in Buenos Aires has significantly increased and rent prices have decreased by 20 percent since Milei’s removal of the capital’s strict rent regulations.
Milei has also shown promise on the foreign-policy front. He’s been a vocal, unequivocal supporter of Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression. And he has promised to reorient Argentine foreign policy away from dictatorships like Russia and China and toward the United States and the democratic world, saying bluntly, “Our geopolitical alignment is with the United States.” He’s followed up on that promise by cutting ties with the BRICS bloc and refusing to even appoint ambassadors to Latin American dictatorships Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba. An Argentina that stands firmly with the liberal democratic world and against authoritarianism would be a welcome sight.
And yet there are still reasons to be wary of Milei. His generally erratic behavior as a candidate doesn’t inspire confidence that he’ll provide Argentina with stable governance. His choice of running mate—an ultraconservative, anti-abortion, anti-same-sex marriage politician who has been accused of downplaying state terrorism committed by Argentina’s previous dictatorship—certainly raises eyebrows. Milei himself has staked a confusing stance on abortion, claiming he is ‘not involved’ in his party’s attempt to repeal legal abortion despite publicly campaigning as an anti-abortion candidate. He’s also appointed a politicianwith neo-Nazi links to his cabinet. He’s fond of culture-war rants where he blames feminism for Argentina’s economic woes. He makes outlandish ideological claims, such as conflating Keynesianism with fascism or stating that society functions “better without a state” entirely.
Beyond unorthodox ideological stances, there are worrying signs he may not be as committed to anti-authoritarian politics as he claims. He admires and has modeled himself after former U.S. President Donald Trump, who attempted to overturn the 2020 election in the United States. And like Trump, he claimed fraud in the first round of the presidential election when he underperformed expectations—without ever providing evidence to support his claim. When he won election to the presidency in the second round of voting, his fraud claims disappeared.
Milei has also proposed a two-year emergency decree (extendable to four years) that would grant him wide authority normally designated to the legislature. Many of his economic reforms are being pushed via these emergency decree powers, and scholars in Argentina believe he’s abusing those decrees in an unconstitutional, authoritarian way.
Milei’s party does not control Argentina’s legislature, and the frequent use of emergency decrees is a way to circumvent the need for legislation he may not be able to pass. While presidents of all stripes in Argentina have made use of emergency decrees, Milei is taking the concept further than any recent president. If he gets his way, he could essentially act as both president and legislature for the duration of his presidential term. Despite his anti-authoritarian moves in foreign policy, Milei may be as willing as some of his predecessors to turn toward authoritarianism at home.
The frustrating dichotomy of Milei’s administration extends beyond simple policy choices. Argentina is a country where politicians have bungled and botched economic policy for decades. It routinely lurches from one crisis to the next, and its economy badly needs reform from almost every angle imaginable. It takes courage to tell voters that your country’s entire economic superstructure is rotting and needs to be torn down, that drastic countermeasures are needed immediately, and that things will get worse for them before they get better. The urge to gloss over problems, to propose band-aid solutions, and to duck hard choices is usually overwhelming. But someone needs to say when the emperor has no clothes. Milei deserves credit for stating plainly that massive, painful reforms are needed and then immediately following through with those reforms. Beyond his specific policies, his blunt honesty is a breath of fresh air.
And yet the only politician with the courage to speak those hard truths honestly also speaks a lot of other “hard truths” that are anything but. He frequently spouts erratic nonsense and gives extremist ideological sermons. He surrounds himself with questionable politicians. He’s so eager to implement his agenda that he’s attempting to bypass Argentina’s democratic checks and balances. In the same way that honesty is valuable beyond specific policy choices, his mercurial behavior and authoritarian leanings are damaging to Argentine politics. After decades of failed policies, Argentina’s economy badly needs a dose of libertarianism, but there’s a fine line between competent reform libertarianism and culture-war crackpot libertarianism.
Milei deserves measured praise for his reform efforts. But his other troubling tendencies can’t be ignored. If he wants to position Argentina as a liberal democratic partner of the West, he needs to abandon the extremist rhetoric and stick to the difficult work of rebuilding Argentina’s economy.