Argentine President Javier Milei thanked President Donald Trump on Monday for his support during the midterm elections, which concluded on Sunday with a surprisingly decisive win for Milei’s political party, Liberty Advances.
Milei, a longtime support of President Trump’s, visited the White House on October 14 to discuss his country’s relationship with Washington and secure a massive currency swap agreement to strengthen his nation’s economy. After 20 years of socialist rule, Argentina’s economy was on the brink of collapse when Milei was elected in December 2023. An economist by trade, the libertarian leader has prioritized stabilizing the nation’s economy, ensuring jobs and the supply of basic goods, as his top campaign promise.
During Milei’s visit to the White House, Trump said that he was agreeing to the currency swap agreement in large part because he considered Milei and honest and competent leader, warning that, should Argentines vote against the right wing in their country, he would not offer support to leftist leaders.
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Trump issued a message of congratulations to Milei on Monday following the decisive victory of Liberty Advances in the midterms, applauding Milei for doing “a wonderful job.”
“Our confidence in him was justified by the people of Argentina,” Trump wrote.
In response, Milei wrote a message thanking Trump for “trusting in the Argentine people” and calling him “a great friend of the Argentine Republic.”
“Our nations should have never stopped being allies,” Milei said, referring to the foreign policy of his leftist predecessors, which brought Argentina into the orbit of rogue states such as China, Iran, and Russia.
“Our peoples want to live in liberty. Count on me to battle for Western civilization, which has managed to lift over 90 percent of the world population out of poverty,” Milei wrote.Milei thanked Trump in his own social media message, calling the American president “a great friend to the Argentine Republic.”
Milei also thanked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for his support and congratulations. In a message published in English, Milei called his win “a triumph of the Argentine people’s unyielding spirit for freedom, prosperity, and the defeat of the socialist scourge that has plagued our nation for far too long.”
“Your administration’s bold vision of Peace through Economic Strength resonates deeply with our own crusade for liberty,” Milei continued. “Under President @realDonaldTrump ‘s leadership, the unbreakable bond between the United States and Argentina will pave the way for unprecedented investment, innovation, and growth—unleashing the full potential of Latin America as a beacon of free enterprise.”
Predictions for Sunday’s midterm elections, which most prominently featured races for seats in the Argentine Congress, were dire for Liberty Advances. In September, the party lost the majority in the state legislature of Buenos Aires province decisively, which many pundits in the country took as a bad omen for the party two years into Milei’s presidential term. On Sunday, however, Liberty Advances won the Buenos Aires seat in the Argentine House – a significant achievement given that its candidate was sidelined and replaced over corruption concerns shortly before the vote.
Nationally, Liberty Advances obtained nearly 41 percent of the vote for seats in Argentina’s House of Representatives, gaining 64 seats. In the Senate, Liberty Advances now holds 20 seats and is the largest party. While the leftist coalition kept 28 seats, these are split among various separate political parties that campaigned together but are not guaranteed to operate in unity during the legislative process. The victory was a clear rejection of former president and vice president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who reportedly hand-picked the local leftist slates despite having been sentenced to prison on corruption charges in June. Kirchner, her late husband and former President Néstor Kirchner, and her protege former President Alberto Fernández (no known relation) ran the country for most of the past two decades, leading to the economic nosedive Milei is currently trying to reverse.
During Milei’s visit to the White House, Trump emphasized that he considered the president a worthy American ally.
“The [midterm] election is coming up very soon, and it’s a very big election, watched by the world because he’s done an incredible job, but with that comes some pain, and they have some pain and now they’re coming out of it,” Trump said at the time. “I think victory is very important, your poll numbers I heard are pretty good, but I think they will be better after this.”
“We won’t be generous with Argentina,” he added, should a leftist take the helm.
“We love them. We will be there for them. They have a great leader, a very great leader,” Trump explained, “our approvals are somewhat subject to who wins an election, because if a socialist, or in the case of New York, a communist wins, you feel a lot different making an investment.”
Last week, President Trump told reporters that he was considering expanding market access to Argentina’s beef sector to lower the price of American beef in this country. He disputed left-wing concerns that Buenos Aires was taking advantage of Trump without providing sufficient benefit in return for Americans.
“They have no money, they have no anything, they’re fighting so hard to survive. If I can help them survive in a free world,” Trump asserted, adding that he “happen[ed] to like” Argentine President Javier Milei, a right-wing libertarian, and rejecting the idea that Argentina was “doing great.”
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