David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner and a nationally syndicated columnist. He is cohost of the “You’re Wrong” podcast and author of multiple books. Subscribe his Substack.
In 2023, over 100 leading economists from around the world, including progressive darling Thomas Piketty, signed a letter warning that “far-right” Argentine presidential candidate Javier Milei’s policies, which were “rooted in laissez-faire economics,” would cause “devastation,” spike inflation, expand poverty, and worsen unemployment.
Celebrated economists never penned any open letters warning that the preceding Peronists’ or Kirchnerists’ perverse blend of fascism, socialism, and unionism would drive Argentina—once one of the world’s wealthiest nations—into destitution, unemployment, soaring inflation, and bankruptcy.
But that’s how it always goes.
Political scientist Ian Bremmer warned, “Economic collapse is coming imminently.”
Felix Salmon, then chief financial correspondent at Axios (now at Bloomberg), argued that Milei’s “wrecking ball” policies would plunge Argentina into “a deep recession.”
When the U.S. provided Argentina with a $20 billion currency swap line last year, former New York Times columnist and Milei critic Paul Krugman argued that there’s “no plausible scenario in which even $20 billion in U.S. loans will save Javier Milei’s failing economic strategy.”
Argentina only tapped around $2.5 billion of that funding and then fully repaid the loan in January of this year with interest, far ahead of schedule.
Well, Argentina’s 2025 gross domestic product also blew past expectations, growing 4.4%, the highest in years. The International Monetary Fund expects the GDP will grow at similar rates in 2026 and 2027.
When Milei’s socialist predecessor Alberto Fernandez reopened the economy after COVID-19 and saw the entirely predictable rise in GDP, popular Nobel laureate economist and Hugo Chavez fan Joseph Stiglitz called it an “economic miracle.” Over the next year, inflation rose to 97%, while poverty spiked, real wages fell, and GDP stagnated.
Since Milei’s party won power in 2023, inflation has dropped over 200%, plunging to the lowest level in eight years.