President Trump, Elon Musk and Argentina’s President Javier Milei have established a special bond. Mr. Miley is the first foreign leader to meet with Mr. Trump a few days after winning the U.S. presidential election. Mr. Trump calls Mr. Miley “favorite president.” Mr. Musk has been in close contact with Mr. McLee’s government reform team since the November U.S. election. So it is not surprising for Argentine observers that Mr. Trump started his tenure by blocking the government’s cash flow and firing workers, just as Mr. Milli’s administration began doing so a year ago.
In recent months, Mr. Millie has been boasting about the “export” of his reform model. There is no doubt that the government borrows good practices from each other. But we should pause, the United States is the world’s leading economy, borrowing government reform technology from Argentina, nine consecutive violators and 100-year economic laggards. Mr. Trump, Mr. Musk and Mr. Millie may have the same anti-national rhetoric and use the same technology, but they have taken their own country in a very different direction.
Mr. Miley’s government is reorganizing the Argentina government, and there is good reason: failure. In the early 1900s, the term “as rich as Argentines” was used, where millions of Italians and Spanish immigrated in the hope of a better life. But soon after, populism and nationalist politics occupied. In 1946, strongman Juan Domingo Perón was taken control, and his party perfected the art of flowing government cash to supporters. The game ended poorly for Argentina, with the political machine asking for more and more money before each election, which led to a repetitive cycle of overspending, booming, bust, depression, depreciation and defaults – until 2020. Until 2020. Argentina’s per capita GDP, once the highest in the world, is now a small part of Italy and Spain.
It was the backdrop of Mr. Miley’s campaign for president, cheering and waving a bunch of supporters. Unlike his Peronist predecessor, Mr. Milley did not blame the aging general and foreign lenders for the country’s disease. Instead, he told the truth. He said the Argentine government spent too much money to force it to print more money, which in turn led to inflation and eventually defaulted. His solution is to cut budgets, which is what he has done since taking office and is backed by a team of experienced technical experts. He won many critics (usually the use of decrees) from his aggressive style of governance, but so did Peronists.
At the heart of Mr. Milei’s plan is to use his trope chainsaw to reduce budgets by 5% of GDP, which he achieved by changing the way pension payments have cut public works and reduced utilities and transportation subsidies, among other measures. He reduced the government head count by about 35,000 jobs in 2024 and reduced the labor force by about 7%.
His financially commendable reforms were hurt. In February 2024, Mr. Miley doubled the prices of bus and train tickets, while the utilities price reform in June was estimated to hit middle-class families, with electricity bills rising 155%. Between 2023 and 2024, the unemployment rate rose from 5.7% to 6.9%, with the percentage of Argentine population in poverty jumping 11 percentage points, above the peak of more than 50% in the first half of 2024.
But so far, the Argentinian insisted on Mr. Miley. Recent polls show his approval rate hovering at nearly 50%. Many people think there is no other option – the economy is showing the light of hope. When he took office in December 2023, consumer price inflation was running at a rate of 25.5% per month. Now, with the economy normalizing, consumer prices rose by only 2.2% in January 2025. Mr. Miley has also recently announced a series of other victories, including fiscal surplus in 2024 and seasonally adjusted GDP expansion in the third quarter. Argentina appears ready to win a new plan from the International Monetary Fund with Mr. Trump’s strong support, while Mr. Milli filed a case for the U.S.-Argentina free trade agreement at CPAC last month, and he also presented Mr. Musk with a glittering chain saw.
There are many benefits to becoming Mr. Trump’s favorite president. The problem is Mr. Trump and the American people – getting rid of this particular relationship. Unfortunately, the answer seems to be Mr. Miley’s anti-state political drama, not his technocratic approach to stewardship.
Like Mr. Millie, Mr. Trump began his tenure by ordering mass shooting and the end of the remote office of the federal workforce. But instead of extracting party hacks from the administration, Mr. Trump fired professional civil servants and senior military officers and inserted Magma loyalists. He fired General Inspector, whose job is to pay attention to poor federal management, while allowing Mr. Musk’s 20-year-old programmers to absorb information into America’s most closely protected computer systems.
With Mr. Milei who proposed the goal of a chain saw to achieve specific budgetary goals to stabilize its economy, Mr. Trump has been celebrating using his power to eliminate the DEI program and kill the “deep state”. In short, Mr. Trump’s team is generating more headlines than budget savings and causing significant damage in the process.
After demolition of the US International Development Agency, Mr. Musk said on X Crow: “We spent a weekend feeding US International Development into wood chippers. It’s possible to attend some great gatherings. Instead.” This shameful and illegal act immediately puts countless lives in danger and reduces the United States’ position in the world, with savings likely less than advertising, as the courts may resume various USAID programs or move to the State Department.
For the United States, Argentine agents are not a good look. Argentina is a failed country, and is now turning to the corner after painful reforms. If Mr. Trump is a true reformer, he will put specific budget goals, put experienced technologists at the forefront and focus on delivering value-added technological innovation. Instead, he takes us on a Peronism path where power politics is more important than good policy. As Argentina teaches us, if the rule of law is replaced by a rule, it can suffer 100 years.
Gregory Makoff is a senior fellow at the Center for Business and Government at the Kennedy School of Harvard University and the author of “Breach of Contract: Landmark Courts Fight for Argentina’s $100 billion debt restructuring.” He previously worked as an investment banker, advised the government and companies to manage their debts, and served as a senior policy adviser for the U.S. Treasury Department.
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