Milei’s Argentina: The rise of ‘el liberalismo’ - Exeter Economics Review %
63/100
Verdict
Mixed
Mixed (Partly Verified; Several Unverified/Overstated Claims)
The article mixes broadly accurate, well-documented macroeconomic context (Milei taking office on 10 Dec 2023; 2023 inflation ~211.4%; the early-2024 shift to a monthly fiscal surplus; April 2024 single-digit monthly inflation) with several weakly supported or ambiguous assertions.
✓ 5 checks out
✕ 1 disputed
? 17 unverified
Full analysis The complete summary ⌄
The article mixes broadly accurate, well-documented macroeconomic context (Milei taking office on 10 Dec 2023; 2023 inflation ~211.4%; the early-2024 shift to a monthly fiscal surplus; April 2024 single-digit monthly inflation) with several weakly supported or ambiguous assertions. The largest issues are (i) a likely incorrect/unclear statement about an 18% one-day peso devaluation in Aug 2023, (ii) a highly implausible claim that FX reserves fell to ~USD 17 million (likely a unit/series confusion), and (iii) interpretive or definitional claims presented as fact (e.g., ‘39 years of Peronist rule’ framed as a continuous ‘norm’, ‘majority of Argentines believe’). Overall reliability is moderate: key factual pillars can be verified, but multiple quantitative details are either unverified or appear mis-specified without the cited sources accessible in the text.
What checked out (5)
- Javier Milei took office (was inaugurated/sworn in) as President of Argentina on 10 December 2023.
- Argentina’s annual inflation for 2023 was reported as 211.4% (INDEC), released in January 2024.
- Argentina’s month-on-month inflation in April 2024 was 8.8%, the first single-digit monthly inflation since October 2023 (per BBC/AP reporting of INDEC data).
- Argentina reduced the number of ministries to 9 from the prior administration’s higher count as part of the early ‘shock’ programme (reported contemporaneously in December 2023).
- Protests/clashes occurred outside Argentina’s National Congress in mid-June 2024 over Milei’s reforms, with demonstrators chanting ‘Our country is not for sale.’
Disputed claims 1 claim ⌄
- Milei’s successful election campaign occurred ‘in December last year’ (as a factual statement about the election timing): he won the presidential run-off on 19 November 2023; 10 December 2023 is his inauguration/assumption of office.
Unverified claims 17 claims ⌄
- ‘After a total of 39 years of Peronist rule, Argentine voters … leapt into the unknown after Javier Milei’s successful election campaign in December last year.’ (Parts are true—Peronists’ cumulative years in the presidency can be stated as 39 in some summaries—but the article’s phrasing implies a continuous 39-year ‘norm’ and also misstates the election month; Milei won the run-off on 19 Nov 2023 and took office on 10 Dec 2023.)
- ‘The majority of Argentineans believe that more drastic measures must be taken’ (requires polling evidence; not established from the article text and not confirmed in the targeted sources retrieved).
- ‘The Argentine peso … was devalued by 18% in a single day in August of 2023.’ (Not confirmed with the sources retrieved; the prominent ‘one-day’ devaluation tied to Milei’s programme was ~50% on 12 Dec 2023, not Aug 2023.)
- ‘Inflation … persistently over 100% since February [2023].’ (Plausible in broad terms, but not confirmed here with primary INDEC time series for each month; treated as unverified in this assessment.)
- ‘Foreign exchange reserves plummeting to around 17 USD million in September [2023] from around 21 USD million only 2 months before.’ (This figure appears inconsistent with commonly reported reserve magnitudes in billions; likely a unit/series misunderstanding; not verified.)
- The characterisation that the ‘dólar blue’ is ‘the most commonly accessed rate among Argentines’ (could be true in some contexts but is a strong superlative that needs the original cited piece; not verified from the sources retrieved).
- ‘Reducing the number of jobs in the public sector by 34%.’ (A 34% figure is reported in some outlets as ‘political positions/leadership positions’ rather than ‘public sector jobs’ overall; the article’s wording is not verified as stated.)
- ‘Increasingly aggressive interest rate cuts’ were used ‘to stop hyperinflation through excessive printing of money’ (interest-rate policy details and causal framing are not verified here).
- ‘Dollarization … essentially scrapping the Argentine central bank and giving the US federal reserve full autonomy over monetary policy.’ (Oversimplified; not verified as stated.)
- ‘These policies have been put on hold recently due to Milei’s lack of a majority in Congress.’ (Not verified here; would require specific reporting linking delays primarily to congressional arithmetic.)
- ‘According to the IMF, [policies] are set to “boost net foreign reserves to 10 billion by year-end”.’ (Not verified here: the IMF programme targets are technical—often expressed as net international reserves (NIR) levels/accumulations and may not match the quoted phrasing.)
- ‘Positive changes … allowed Milei to access a further 4.7 billion-dollar loan.’ (Not verified here; would require IMF disbursement documentation for that amount and timing.)
- ‘Fiscal surplus for the first time since April 2012.’ (BBC reports a first monthly-target achievement since 2012 and gives April 2024 surplus data; however the article’s exact ‘since April 2012’ phrasing is not directly verified.)
- ‘Fuel prices increasing by 60%’ (there is reporting of ~60% increases over a specific short window in December 2023; the article attributes it more generally to the devaluation/cost-of-living crisis—needs tighter dating to be fully verified as presented).
- ‘Social Observatory of the Catholic University … rise in poverty of 12% since Milei came to power.’ (Related estimates exist showing a rise from late-2023 to early-2024, but the ‘12% since Milei came to power’ formulation is not verified here.)
- ‘Milei retained around a 50% approval rating in March [2024] (The Economist).’ (Not verified directly from The Economist in the retrieved set; a third-party summary reports ~50%, but that is not treated as confirmation of The Economist’s exact wording/measurement.)
- ‘A fourth Argentine financial crisis in the 21st century’ (depends on how ‘financial crisis’ is defined and counted; not verified).
Sources & how we checked Search journal, source grades, confidence ⌄
Confidence
Medium — Confidence is medium because several central factual claims were corroborated by reputable, dated sources (AP/BBC/Independent/Guardian/Bloomberg). However, multiple quantitative assertions in the article (Aug 2023 ‘18%’ devaluation; ‘USD 17 million’ reserves; IMF ‘USD 10bn’ and ‘USD 4.7bn’ figures; ‘34% public sector jobs’ framing; poverty ‘up 12% since Milei’ wording) could not be confirmed with the sources opened in this run and may reflect misinterpretation or unit/definition issues. Those were conservatively left Unverified, which limits the overall trust score.
Search journal
Argentina presidency Javier Milei inaugurated date December 2023
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/10/javier-milei-sworn-in-as-president-in-tipping-point-for-argentina
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inauguration_of_Javier_Milei
Argentina inflation 211.4% December 2023 INDEC year-on-year 211.4
- https://apnews.com/article/68f27bf0473590fabb5b6c1aff80579f
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-11/argentina-inflation-hits-211-in-2023-fastest-in-three-decades
- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/argentina-ap-buenos-aires-latin-america-caribbean-b2477299.html
BBC June 9 2024 Have Milei’s first six months improved the Argentine economy fiscal surplus first time since April 2012
Argentina reports its first single-digit inflation in 6 months as markets swoon and costs hit home
Argentina's riot police clash with protesters in capital’s streets over president Javier Milei’s reforms June 13 2024
Argentina new president Milei reduces number of ministries from 18 to 9 December 2023
- https://apnews.com/article/28089d64ae72bde12d53be59b5bc5a85
- https://buenosairesherald.com/politics/mileis-government-reduces-ministries-and-secretariats-by-50
Article metrics
The article we checked Full text as retrieved ⌄
After a total of 39 years of Peronist rule, Argentine voters have rejected this norm and leapt into the unknown after Javier Milei’s successful election campaign in December last year. Milei represents a new form of politics in Argentina and globally, describing himself as an ‘anarcho-capitalist’, that being a proponent of the liberal right-wing. Milei’s rise to power represents not only a rejection of Peronist and left-wing collectivist thought but also underlines the fact the majority of Argentineans believe that more drastic measures must be taken to rescue Argentina’s crumbling economy.
The economic state of Argentina that Milei has inherited can be characterized as dire. In addition to the weakness of the Argentine peso, which was devalued by 18% in a single day in August of 2023 (Glover, 2023), inflation rates soared up to 211.4% (Trading Economics, n.d) in December 2023 and have been persistently over 100% since February of that year. As well as this, the Argentine economy remained susceptible to market shock, with foreign exchange reserves plummeting to around 17 USD million in September from around 21 USD million only 2 months before (Trading Economics, n.d). However, the economic situation that Milei has inherited is fractured not solely due to Peronist monetary policy, but socially through the existence of the “dollar blue”, an unofficial, black-market currency that is deemed to be the “most commonly accessed rate among Argentines”, representing the clear sense of mistrust in Argentinean institutions such as the central bank (Stewart, 2023). Overall, it’s fair to say that Milei has his work cut out for him, the response to his proposal to fix this situation, however, has been incredibly polarizing.
Pictured here (Sarmenti, 2023) is Javier Milei wielding a chainsaw, a perfect representation of his economic policies, cut everything. As a self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist, Milei’s policies are based on his view that government intervention, or bigger government, are and have been detrimental to the Argentine economy. Instead, Milei seeks to promote libertarian economic policies through “shock therapy”, extreme austerity, and cutting government institutions to the bone.
‘Shock therapy’ in this case refers to Milei’s plan to shift Argentina’s economic policy swiftly, from collectivist economics to libertarian, cutting government spending through a reduction in fuel and transport subsidies (Tewari, 2023) and slashing 9 government ministries (Tewari, 2023), thus reducing the number of jobs in the public sector by 34% (Tewari, 2023). Furthermore, according to Financial Times, in order to control inflation Milei has employed “increasingly aggressive interest rate cuts” in an effort to stop hyperinflation through excessive printing of money (Nugent, 2024), as well as promoting the notion of the ‘dollarization’ of the peso, that being essentially scrapping the Argentinean central bank and giving the US federal reserve full autonomy over monetary policy (Cooban, 2023), although these policies have been put on hold recently due to Milei’s lack of a majority in Congress (Plummer, 2024). These policies of devaluation, according to the IMF, are set to “boost net foreign reserves to 10 billion by year-end” (IMF, 2024), thus limiting Argentina’s susceptibility to market shock or crashes. These ‘positive’ changes, in the view of the IMF, have allowed Milei to access a further 4.7 billion-dollar loan, which will assist in Milei’s goals of tackling inflation within Argentina (Nugent, 2024). It is evident that the policies underlined here are drastic, however, the question remains as to whether they are enough to stop a fourth Argentine financial crisis in the 21st century, and what effects they’ve had so far.
Since coming to power, Milei’s reforms have had some positive effects, extreme austerity measures have led to the Argentine government reporting a fiscal surplus for the first time since April 2012 (Plummer, 2024). Moreover, In terms of inflation, Argentina saw its first non-double-digit inflation rate since October of last year (Plummer, 2024). Despite these factors however, the devaluation of the peso has contributed to the cost-of-living crisis, with fuel prices increasing by 60%, and according to the Social Observatory of the Catholic University, has caused a rise in poverty of 12% since Milei came to power (Käufer, 2024). Moreover, Milei’s drastic measures to rectify the mistakes of past governments, namely his harsh austerity measures, have been met with resistance in the form of riots outside the national congress in June of this year, with proponents of the left chanting “Our country is not for sale” and waving flags depicting the face of Che Guevara, an Argentine socialist icon. (Singh, 2024)
Although according to the government “the situation will get worse before it gets better” (Wells, 2024), the harsh realities of the consequences of economic shock therapy are now more and more evident. Still, according to The Economist, Milei retained around a 50% approval rating in March of this year (The Economist, 2024), denoting the fact that many Argentines still believe that the true effects of Milei’s reforms are yet to come to pass. As is the case with the employment of neoliberal ‘shock therapy’, more time is needed to know as to whether Milei’s reforms will bear the fruit of his promises, or whether the cost-of-living crisis will tank his approval ratings to the point of no return, time will tell.
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_Bibliography:_
* _Ioanes, E. (2023, December 17). Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, explained.Vox._[_
* _TRADING ECONOMICS. (n.d.).Argentina inflation rate._[_
* _TRADING ECONOMICS. (n.d.-a).Argentina Foreign Exchange Reserves._[_
* _Glover, G. (2023, November 11). This is the world’s next major election. The winner has to fix chronic hyperinflation and halt a 6th recession in 10 years. Business Insider._[_
* _Squires, S. (2023, August 13). A beginner’s guide to understanding Argentina’s multiple exchange rates. Bloomberg Línea.
* _Stewart, E. (2023, March 23). What it looks like when a country doesn’t trust its banks. Vox.
* _Tewari, S. (2023, December 13). Argentina peso: Milei begins “shock therapy” by devaluing currency. BBC News._[_
* _Nugent, C. (2024, May 23). Financial Times._[_
* _Cooban, A. (2023, October 23).Javier Milei wants Argentina to swap the peso for the US dollar. Here’s what that could mean | CNN Business. CNN._[_
* _IMF (2024, February). ARGENTINA SEVENTH REVIEW_[_
* _Plummer, R. (2024, June 9).Have Milei’s first six months improved the Argentine economy?BBC News; BBC News._[_
* _Käufer, T. (2024, March 18) Argentina: Milei’s first 100 days of hope and concern._[_
* _Wells, I. (2024, February 16). Javier Milei: Argentines wait for “crazy” president’s shock therapy to work.BBC News._[_
* _Singh, N. (2024, June 13). Argentina’s riot police clash with protesters in capital’s streets over president Javier Milei’s reforms.The Independent._[_
* _The Economist. (2024, March 19). After 100 brutal days, Javier Milei has markets believing.The Economist._[_
* _Sarmenti, S. P. P. (2023, October 1). The “chainsaw” candidate challenging Argentina’s left and right. CNN.