Argentina

Javier Milei, Argentina’s self styled “anarcho-capitalist” President, defied pessimistic poll predictions on Sunday to win in the midterm elections and save his radical economic reforms. With almost all the votes counted, Milei’s La Libertad Avanza (LLA) party had won nearly 41 percent of the national vote, while the main left-wing Peronist opposition Fuerza Patria party netted just over 31 percent.  Up for grabs in the election were 127 of the 257 seats in the lower house of Congress, and 24 out of 72 seats in the upper house Senate. The LLA won 64 lower house seats and 12 in the Senate, enough for Milei to overcome an opposition veto against his most radical measures.

A landslide election defeat for Argentine President Javier Milei’s Libertad Avanza party has made money markets doubt whether he will be able to push through his radical economic reforms.The Argentine peso lost 5.6 percent to the dollar and the Merval stock index plunged by 13 points on Monday after the flamboyant President’s party trailed the leftist opposition Peronist party of former President Cristina Kirchner by 13 points (47 percent to 34 percent) in local elections in Buenos Aires province – which, with 40 percent of the country’s voters, is the country’s biggest and most populous area.Bond markets also reacted negatively to the shock result, posting their biggest daily falls since they recommenced trading in 2021 after a debt reconstruction deal.

After nearly two decades of reign over Bolivia, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party was banished at the ballot box on August 17. Its fall is a dramatic political realignment to the right for Bolivians, and a rare opportunity for the United States to reform relations with a geopolitically critical nation. As one expert, Leonardo Coutinho, told us, “The Trump administration can not only contribute to the restoration of democracy but also play a central role in dismantling a fully functioning narco-state.” Despite its 25 percent inflation rate and a 93 percent debt-to-GDP ratio, Bolivia is rich in natural resources, boasting some of the world’s largest lithium reserves, making it an attractive target for both American and Chinese grand strategies.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s incendiary speech last month calling on Democrats to organize massive civil unrest against the Trump Administration caught me off guard. “It’s time to fight everywhere and all at once,” he urged an assemblage of New Hampshire Democrats, “Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. The reckoning is finally here!”Let those words sink in. Mass protests. Like the 2020 George Floyd riots with at least 25 deaths and $2 billion in property damage? Mobilization. It’s a military term, like the Army convoys I saw on highways and heavy equipment on trains when I drove cross-country in 2002 as Bush prepared to invade Iraq.

Did Argentina pave the way for Elon Musk’s Doge? At the very least, Javier Milei’s famous chainsaw has provided a roadmap for the South African billionaire to follow as he tries to slash the size of the US government budget. Musk has spent much of the past few days and weeks decrying supposed ‘fraud’ and ‘abuse’ his team has discovered in its analysis of US government spending, a message he reiterated in his Oval Office interview this week. Set aside his rather peculiar and broad definition of fraud for a moment and a straight line can be drawn between his messaging and Milei’s.  The self-described anarcho-capitalist president waged his successful electoral campaign by lambasting his opponents as corrupt socialists and decrying government spending as waste.