Back in 2002 the then-Secretary of the United States Treasury Paul O’Neill said: “We’re working to find a way to create a sustainable Argentina, not just one that continues to consume the money of the plumbers and carpenters in the United States” – how little seems to have changed since then, both in the crisis finding President Javier Milei in the White House last Tuesday and the nature of US President Donald Trump’s ambivalent response. If another O’Neill (Speaker Tip) famously said: “All politics is local,” this cannot be ignored by Trump who sees himself as a man of two worlds – his self-image as the global genius freeing the Gaza Strip hostages and bailing out Argentina needs to be balanced with attention to not so much plumbers and carpenters as farmers and healthcare patients (and perhaps also current US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s billionaire bondholder pals).
Trump’s disruptive statements pegging US “generosity” to Milei winning next fortnight’s midterms should be seen in the context of this dichotomy but, whatever their origin, their impact was disastrous, transforming Milei’s White House visit from a crowning achievement to yet another trigger of market turbulence. They effectively turned Milei’s formula for winning the midterms on its head – instead of US financial assistance proving to be a trump card, so to speak, the elections must now be won to qualify for that aid.
As it happened, there was a partial rebound the next day on stock markets at least with Bessent lowering the electoral bar to enough deputies to uphold presidential vetoes and dangling another US$20 billion on top of the currency swap, which did not prevent the greenback from topping 1,400 pesos – if the tango says “20 años no es nada,” it would almost seem that US$20 billion is also nothing. While this electoral trump card totters, the other ace up Milei’s sleeve of lowering inflation to a monthly couple of percent via fiscal balance also languishes – not because this undeniable achievement is unappreciated but because it seems to carry too high a price in the form of an overvalued peso, interest rates and imports battering a productive structure not abreast of modern times.
This editorial does not propose to pursue this topic any further – not so much because the constant market helter-skelter is far from being a closed chapter as because it is perverting these midterms into a plebiscite like the Buenos Aires Province vote a month ago and impoverishing campaign debate. The election of 151 new legislators should not be limited to single-issue either/or propositions. Little or nothing is said about the technological revolution dominating the agenda elsewhere in the world, spearheaded by artificial intelligence (for which an investment of US$25 billion into a Stargate Argentina data centre has been announced but also threatening almost every current job).
Beyond that, the list of issues beyond the “libertad o kirchnerismo” choice to which voters are supposedly limited is almost endless. Educational deficiencies and the surge in informal employment are at least sporadically mentioned without going into any depth but has any candidate delved into the enormous social impact of a plunging birth rate? There are up to 15 lists per district due to the suspension of the PASO primary filter but little sign of any including green activists eager to discuss climate change. Within healthcare mental health problems have grown exponentially to become almost a new pandemic rivalling physical health disorders (where diet is becoming a factor to match disease) but who talks about that? Drug addiction does surface but usually subordinated to crimefighting while a bill has been drafted on online betting yet all very much backstage along with a welter of more local issues.
If the next crop of deputies and senators is to be chosen according to the slogan “libertad o kirchnerismo,” this will guarantee a further impoverishment of debate because these two extremes of polarisation are largely responsible for a steep decline in the quality of Congress in the past two decades. It started with the dogmatism of the La Cámpora militants but it has only been deepened by the extreme mediocrity of libertarian deputies – when recruiting candidates, any signs of intelligence seem almost to be mistrusted due to the chronic volatility of the caucus, whose real cause is the openness to opportunists when true believers in the Austrian school of economics are lacking.
If Trump’s intervention and the José Luis Espert scandal have crowded out less urgent but more important issues, no wonder electoral apathy is so feared.
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