With the presidential election mere weeks away, both candidates are going all out to win over swing voters, and their promises are growing increasingly outlandish — some bordering on illegal. While American voters despair that our election politics have devolved into ludicrous gimmicks, Argentina’s Javier Milei continues to show how commitment to democratic principles can still prevail.
On the campaign trail and as president, Milei has unapologetically embraced Western democratic values and classically liberal economics. With Milton Friedman as his north star, Milei is introducing what he calls “shock therapy,” a policy blueprint embedded in free market ideals and fiscal responsibility to reinvigorate Argentina’s economy. Milei not only succeeded in his election victory in December, 2023, garnering over 55% of the vote, but is now succeeding at governing without sacrificing good policy. It seems the Argentinian president is better at adopting Western values than many of today’s US politicians are at upholding them. American political leaders should steer clear of nonsense politics and commit themselves to forming policy that upholds economic freedom at home and bolsters Western values abroad.
Despite intense pushback from the left, one of Milei’s first actions as president was to repeal a 2020 rent control law. According to Reason Magazine, the law mandated three-year lease terms and that rent be paid in pesos. It also limited rent adjustments to once a year and enabled tenants to dictate conditions for lease termination. Instead of helping tenets as intended, by 2023, housing supply plunged and the price of rents exploded, increasing by an average of 140%.
Since the law’s repeal, Buenos Aires is experiencing a rental transformation. In the capital city, rental supplies are increasing by over 170%, and the real price of rental properties is down 40% adjusted for inflation since last October. And Milei’s self-declared “shock therapy” doesn’t stop there. While annual inflation remains high overall, lingering from the inherited economic crisis, monthly inflation was slashed from nearly 26% upon taking office last December to 3.5% in September following Milei’s economic reforms, including budget cuts that led to the country’s first surplus since 2012. Argentina has not yet fully recovered from its historic economic crisis, but Milei is staying the course and understands that Argentina’s problems do not end at their borders.
On the world stage, Milei closely aligns with liberal democracies and speaks honestly about anti-West autocrats who seek to undermine their sovereignty, ideals and aspirations. He entered office during a period of global turmoil and regional democratic backsliding. Across the world stage, Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine rages on in Europe and Israel continues its fight against the barbarism of Iran and its proxies. Closer to Argentina’s borders, despite clear evidence of Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan dictator, overwhelmingly losing this year’s presidential election, his corrupt regime declared him the winner.
Milei is clear eyed about the moral consequences of these crises and stares down enemies of the West for what they are. At the UN in September, Milei defended Israel as “the only country in the Middle East to defend liberal democracy” and issued a sharp rebuke of the UN for its hypocrisy. He expressed that the international body harshly criticizes Israel while awarding “bloody dictatorships” seats on the Human Right Council and regimes with the most repressive laws against women to join the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
And during the Global Peace Summit this summer, Milei articulated his support for Ukraine and condemned Russia’s invasion, conveying Russia as the clear invader and Ukraine as the unprovoked defender. He also lauded liberalism as “respect for the neighbor life project, based on the non-aggression principle and in defense of the right to life, freedom, and private property.”
Closer to home, when Maduro made it clear that he would seek to stay in power despite the people of Venezuela rejecting him through the democratic process, Milei was quick to condemn his crimes against the Venezuelan people, refusing to recognize the fraudulent election results and calling on the international community to “unite and restore the rule of law in Venezuela…” He also took to Twitter to call Maduro for what he is: a dictator.
Speaking again at the Global Peace Summit, he articulated both the moral and material risks of allowing autocrats to run amok, warning of the threat that war poses to prosperity. “There is no economic prosperity if there is no free trade … and there is no free trade if there is no peace,” he said. The post-war order created an unprecedented era of relative peace, and that peace created an unprecedented level of prosperity by allowing economic freedom to thrive at a global level. This peace and prosperity is not inevitable, and returning to a world where autocrats feel emboldened to invade their neighbors threatens human progress.
Milei makes the case for economic freedom at home, resolute support for the West and its values, and why the two are vitally inseparable. In making this case without apology, Milei has formed a devoted voter base, demonstrating leadership which should serve as a framework for America’s political candidates. Instead of surrendering good policy to please the polls — a transparent tactic more likely to instill dread in voters than confidence — it’s time our candidates tried standing up for what is right.
Ed Tarnowski is a Policy and Advocacy Director at EdChoice and host of the State of Choice Podcast. His work has been published in National Review, The Washington Examiner, Fox News, Education Next, New Hampshire Journal, PennLive, and GoLocalProv. He received bachelor's degrees in political science and marketing from the University of Rhode Island. Follow him on Twitter @edtarnowski. The views and opinions expressed in this writing are strictly his own and do not reflect the views of his employer.
