Part I of this series celebrated Javier Milei’s amazing success, Part II pointed out that labor market liberalization is still a big challenge, while Part III noted that the tax system still needs to be fixed.

This final video in the series explains the need for free trade.

As noted in the video, Milei inherited a terrible situation. Argentina had terrible trade scores from both Economic Freedom of the World and the Index of Economic Freedom.

Indeed, its EFW score was one of the worst in the world.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that Milei understands the issue (unlike another well-known president).

As such, he wants to make it easier to both export and import. And he’s used his presidential authority to take steps in that direction.

But you don’t cure decades of protectionism in just 19 months. Much more is needed, some of which may require approval of a legislature that is still controlled by Peronist politicians (i.e., the ones who saddled Argentina with protectionism in the first place).

So it may be that big progress on free trade may not be possible until after Argentina’s mid-term elections later this year.

I’ll close by sharing the IEF trade rankings.

The good news is that these scores are a bit better than the EFW scores. Maybe a D rather than an F.

So Milei has a big task to get rid of protectionist policies plaguing his nation. But since he wants to make Argentina one of the world’s richest and freest nations, there’s no alternative.

The bottom line is that he’s already delivered a miracle, but an even bigger one would be wonderful.