[Simone Del Rosario]

He promised pain for his people, and they elected him president anyway. And with the highest share of votes since Argentina’s return to democracy. 

One year removed from his resounding victory, are Argentines already running out of patience with Javier Milei? 

He’s still the most popular political leader in the inflation-ravaged nation, but popularity is fleeting. Now, more than half the country (51%) disapproves of how Milei is running Argentina, up from 48% in January. 

More than half the country also lives in poverty. In Milei’s first six months in office, the poverty rate has spiked from 42% to 53%. 

Monica De Bolle: It’s one long Groundhog Day over there. I‘m Monica de Bolle, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, macro economist and an expert on Argentina, given a long history looking at the country, including when I was working at the IMF. I’m a bit of an outlier, opinion wise, in terms of what Milei has done. I know that most economists, or at least a lot of economists, think that he’s doing a great job, but my grading for him would be a four at best.

Martin Castellano: I would put maybe seven or eight, they have done significant progress in terms of stabilizing the economy. Hi. I’m Martin Castellano. I’m the head of Latin America research at the Institute of International Finance, and I’m focused more mostly on macroeconomic policies in Latin America.

Simone Del Rosario: Javier Milei inherited a terrible economy: hyperinflation in the triple digits, the poverty rate double what it was six years before, a country on the brink of another economic crisis. Milei promised shock therapy and Argentina signed up. 

Monica De Bolle: The shock therapy approach that Milei implemented was in large part because of the failure of the gradualist approach. But the risk with the shock therapy approach is always that you know things are going to get very bad, and it’s still going to take a very long time for them to improve if they do improve.

Simone Del Rosario: When Milei first took office, he devalued the country’s currency while at the same time removing price controls and federal subsidies his people had come to rely on. That led to a surge in inflation while at the same time, taking away safety nets people had come to expect. 

Monica De Bolle: You’re playing with fire in a sense, because you’re doing all of these things at once, they’re all going to hit the population in one go. That I think was correctly communicated to people, and I think they understood it, which is why, you know, they’ve been able to hold on to these policies for as long as they have, but now patience is running out.

Martin Castellano: Given that his support in Congress is quite limited, It’s important for him to keep the popular support.

Monica De Bolle: If things do not improve very quickly, we are going to be seeing people out in the streets protesting again, and we’re going to see social upheaval, and we’re going to see political upheaval, and you know that that is how it usually plays out, and there’s no reason why this time will be any different from what it has been in the past.

Simone Del Rosario: The protests have already begun. In October, hundreds of thousands of students took to the streets against budget cuts at public universities, where the salaries of most teachers now fall below the poverty line. 

Nicolas Sirolli: We are losing a lot of people that we cannot replace because they do not get enough to make a living. 

Simone Del Rosario: State workers striked the same month, demanding better wages and denouncing Milei’s economic policies. The walkout coincided with a transportation worker strike, which ground the country to a halt.

Monica De Bolle: The perception is one where, no, you know, there’s no improvement. Here, they keep telling us that things are improving, but things are really not improving, because I look at my purchasing power and it’s going down.

Simone Del Rosario: See, wages aren’t budging while inflation continues to soar. Spurred by Milei’s shock therapy, annual inflation reached nearly 300% in April. But for six straight months, that annual rate has worked its way down, though it’s still nearly 200% and higher than when Milei was elected. But in October, monthly inflation dipped below 3%, the lowest monthly price increase in the country in nearly three years. 

Martin Castellano: I think that the progress on the inflation front has been quite, quite remarkable, and we will see inflation declining further in the coming months as particularly those high readings from last year are out of the picture.

Simone Del Rosario: On top of it all, the economy is still in a recession and pushing deeper than expected. Estimates now have the economy contracting about 4% this year. But BBVA Research expects a 6% rebound next year, driven by investments, exports and private consumption. Milei’s budget projects a 5% expansion, with inflation a little over 18% by the end of 2025. It hasn’t been that low since the mid-2010s. 

From the outside, there are many bright spots to what Milei has achieved so far. And his friendship with President-elect Donald Trump gives him an important international ally. But from the inside…

Monica De Bolle: People are starting to sort of do the mental calculation of what these policies have effectively cost them to date from the time that they were adopted, and then they’re looking ahead and doing the calculation of, well, when, when can I expect an improvement? Well, I just can’t see it. And therefore, you know, you get this, this sort of turning point from relative optimism or cautionary optimism into pessimism.

Simone Del Rosario: Wanting change, but wearing thin… 

Martin Castellano: The worst of the adjustment is behind. But I think fine tuning and improving, particularly on the on the political front, is going to be more important, increasingly important in the coming months.

Simone Del Rosario: Simply put, Milei doesn’t have a ton of support in Congress, especially for his unpopular policies. His party holds a minority in both chambers, and the 2025 midterms will serve as a referendum on his progress.  

Javier Milei: That is why I ask you to move forward with faith and confidence. Because from now on, we will only have good news, and in 2025, we will give an electoral blow. 

Simone Del Rosario: His austerity experiment may depend on it. 

Javier Milei: Viva la libertad, carajo.