Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, cut an eccentric figure when he donned his leather jacket and belted out rock songs to a stadium last month.
And when he insults his country’s Congress (“a nest of rats”), the governor of the province of Buenos Aires (“a communist dwarf”) and the prime minister of Spain (“the laughing stock of Europe”), he comes across as just another boorish populist. Both characterisations have a grain of truth. Even so, by most economic measures Mr Milei is beating expectations.
When he took office in December Argentina’s economy was a tangle of rampant inflation and unsustainable price controls. To clean up, Mr Milei slashed spending. The central bank stopped printing money to finance the deficit.
As a result, Argentina has had fiscal surpluses for five months in a row. Inflation spiked after a sharp devaluation, but has since fallen to a monthly rate of 4.2% in May, the lowest in over two years.
