The first months of 2025 looked like the real victory lap. With the 2024 budget in surplus for the first time in 15 years and monthly inflation falling from 25.5% to 2%, the Argentine president has been touring capitals in Europe and America, extolling the evils of socialism, the woke agenda and government intervention in the economy.
A few months later and with the parliamentary elections of October 26 going to the polls, Miley is fighting a hard battle for political survival.
The October 26 mid-term elections are held to renew 127 of the 257 parliamentary seats and 24 of the 72 senatorial seats, while the next presidential election is expected in the country in 2027.
Javier Miley on the brink of defeat
At the moment, Miley’s neoliberal and ultraconservative party, La Libertad Avanza, is battling for first place with the center-left, Peronist alliance Fuerza Patria, with the difference between first and second hovering within the margin of statistical error.
This is a complete reversal, if one considers that at the beginning of 2025 everything predicted a comfortable dominance of the eccentric Miley. The austerity program he put in place when he took office, which included drastic cuts in public spending, including cuts to energy and transport subsidies, a pension freeze, the suspension of public works and the dismissal of tens of thousands of civil servants, initially appeared to be working.
Miley himself was even warmly received by his American counterpart at the latter’s Mar-a-Lago resort and watched as he was presented with the Global Citizen Award by the Atlantic Council think tank. A highlight was Miley’s joint appearance with Elon Musk, with the latter not hesitating to use the chainsaw (!) that the former gave him on stage.
LIBRA and the scandal that shakes everything
Then came the effects of austerity, combined with the nepotism of domestic political life. The first blow involved the collapse of the much-hyped LIBRA cryptocurrency, the failure of which resulted in a $250 million windfall for investors. The news in the field of industrial development was not positive either, after a 3% contraction was recorded compared to the first half of 2024, according to official data from the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses.
This was followed by the case of the president’s sister, who is accused of participating in fraud. Carina Millay was accused of taking part in a bribery scandal centered on the National Disability Service (Andis), with herself allegedly receiving 3% of the 8% kickback that enveloped the corruption ring from each drug supply. Leaked audio documents even led to Miley being stoned in August during a campaign rally near Buenos Aires by protesters protesting the fraternity scandal.
Moreover, in the purely political field, Miley himself was on the defensive. Indicatively, the Senate rejected a number of presidential orders seeking to reduce the state budget and approved increases in funding for health care and public universities. At the same time, the two legislatures overturned presidential decrees that were seen as disbanding state agencies such as the National Theater Institute or the National Genetic Data Bank (a tool to identify the real identity of abducted minors given up for illegal adoption during the dictatorship).
The culmination of popular discontent against Millay was the heavy defeat of the ruling party in local elections in the province of Buenos Aires on September 7, where the Peronists prevailed state by state, winning in 6 of the 8 major constituencies in the country’s most populous province.
The “kiss of life” from Trump
In the presence of the combination of political crisis and economic uncertainty, his recent decision to provide a loan of 20 billion dollars – in cooperation with American banking giants – to Argentina, can be taken as a real “kiss of life” for Miley. The American president has openly admitted that the 20 billion dollars pledged by the United States in financial aid to Argentina is being given as a means of influencing the election result.
Welcoming Argentine President Javier Millay to the White House last week, Donald Trump said the US would not “waste its time” helping Argentina if Millay’s party did not win the election. There are certainly backlashes within Argentina, with the opposition decrying crude interference in the country’s internal affairs, while Millay is indeed seeing a rebound in his poll numbers, which many analysts attribute to the backlash caused by the elections in Buenos Aires.
Reactions within the US
In addition to the Argentine opposition, Trump also received “arrows” from American livestock farmers, who see competitive Argentine meat – especially beef, which is the country’s main export product – at a premium over American meat. “We cannot stand by President Trump while he undermines our future,” the National Beef Producers Association (NCBA) posted on its X account.
And it’s not just the livestock world. As New Yorker columnist John Cassidy notes, it constitutes a break with the popular demand of the MAGA movement, since it rewards in unclear terms a country whose economic interconnection with Washington is nowhere near as vital. There are also concerns in US banking circles about whether lending to the financially troubled country will prove profitable.
In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, pressure is already being exerted on Finance Minister Scott Besant to provide satisfactory guarantees to American bankers who, regardless of the election result, have a permanent distrust of Buenos Aires.
