In 2023, candidate Javier Milei offered himself to voters as the antiestablishment, chainsaw-wielding bolt from the blue that Argentina needed to tame the country’s chronic inflation and government dysfunction. Twenty months later, the doubters—I was one of them—are in retreat.
Since Milei entered the Casa Rosada as President, voters have punished elected leaders and ruling parties in India, South Africa, France, Britain, Japan, Germany, and the U.S.—in part because prices have risen. Milei is the G-20 leader taking the biggest risks to turn his country around ... and they’re paying off. Annual inflation in Argentina fell from a jaw-dropping 289% in April 2024 to 66.9% in February 2025.
Critics say Milei is taming inflation with austerity measures that weigh heavily on the poor, but they’ve been wrong on that front too: the national poverty rate fell from 52.9% in the first half of 2024 to 38.1% in the second half.
Argentina’s political system has been badly broken for decades. Turned out they needed someone to actually fix it.
Bremmer is a TIME editor-at-large and the president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media