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In fall 2023, over a hundred leading economists from around the world, including progressive darling Thomas Piketty, signed a letter warning that “far-right” Argentine presidential candidate Javier Milei’s policies, which were “rooted in laissez-faire economics,” would cause “devastation,” spike inflation, expand poverty, and unemployment.

Celebrated economists had never penned any open letters warning about Peronists or Kirchnerists, whose perverse blend of fascism, socialism, and unionism drove Argentina, once one of the world’s wealthiest nations, into destitution, unemployment, soaring inflation, and bankruptcy. But that’s how it always goes.

Political scientist Ian Bremmer warned, “Economic collapse is coming imminently.” Felix Salmon, then-chief financial correspondent at Axios (now at Bloomberg), argued that Milei’s “wrecking ball” policies would plunge Argentina into “a deep recession.”

When the United States provided Argentina with a $20 billion currency swap line last year, former New York Times columnist and Milei critic Paul Krugman argued that there’s “no plausible scenario in which even $20 billion in U.S. loans will save Javier Milei’s failing economic strategy.”

Argentina only tapped around $2.5 billion of that funding, and then fully repaid the loan in January of this year with interest, far ahead of schedule.

Argentina’s 2025 GDP also blew past expectations, growing 4.4%, the highest in years. The International Monetary Fund expects the GDP to grow at similar rates in 2026 and in 2027.

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