Before the 2023 presidential election in Argentina, 108 left-leaning economists released a letter warning that Javier Milei’s “economic proposals…are fraught with risks that make them potentially very harmful for the Argentine economy.”

Voters ignored those warnings and elected Milei. And the 108 lefty economists – including class-warfare ideologues such as Thomas Piketty and Gabriel Zucman – wound up with egg on their faces.

Here’s a partial list of the very positive things that have happened since Milei’s landslide victory.

• Spending cuts to immediately balance the budget
• Dramatic reductions in the rate of inflation
• Very large reductions in the rate of poverty

Given the rapid turnaround in Argentina’s economy, no wonder people all over the world are talking about the “Milei Miracle.”

And the people inside Argentina have weighed in as well, giving Milei’s libertarian party a landslide victory in last October’s mid-term elections.

But today’s column (the final entry in our seven-part series) is about what folks on the left are saying.

The easy answer is that those 108 academic leftists are staying very quiet.

And that’s understandable. They predicted chaos and decline and were spectacularly wrong. So they have no interest in reminding people of their errors by making further comments about Argentina.

But other folks on the left are being vocal, arguing that Argentina is so mismanaged that it required a big bailout.

As large as $82 billion according to Kremlin media.

That’s a make-believe number. However, it is true that Trump announced the U.S. would intervene in favor of Argentina.

He mentioned $40 billion, but half of that amount was unspecified investment from the private sector that quickly evaporated.

Which meant that the bailout was $20 billion and U.S. taxpayers were footing the bill for a “currency swap” designed to stabilize Argentina’s currency.

Except only $2.5 billion was used, not $20 billion.

And it didn’t cost taxpayers a single cent.

Indeed, the supposed bailout actually created a profit for the U.S. Treasury Department. Here are some details from a report from Reuters by Rodrigo Campos and David Lawder.

The U.S. government “made money” by giving support to the Argentine central bank ahead of last month’s midterm election in the South American country, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said… Bessent was asked about the $20 billion swap line that the Trump administration readied in support of right-wing Argentine President Javier Milei ahead of the election in which Milei’s party widely outperformed expectations. Officials have stopped short of calling it a bailout, referring to it as support via the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilization Fund.

By the way, this is not to argue that the currency swap was the right thing to do. As I wrote last September, I appreciate that Trump wanted to help Milei, but I also don’t think that’s a proper role for the federal government.

But I’m writing about the supposed bailout today for two reasons.

First, is it right to say there was a bailout when no tax dollars wound up in Argentina? Heck, is it correct to say there was a bailout when the U.S. government made a profit?

Second (and more important), our friends on the left who fret about a supposed bailout apparently don’t realize that they are implicitly acknowledging that Milei’s policies are good and necessary.

• Argentina’s financial markets and its currency weakened because the left won a victory in a regional election last September, making investors worry the left would win the midterm elections the following month.
• The currency swap stopped the decline (even investors who worried about a victory for the left knew it would be foolish to bet against the U.S. Treasury with $20 billion available to prop up the Argentine peso).
• When Milei’s party won the mid-term elections, financial markets and the currency instantly rallied (thus enabling a profit for the Treasury) because pro-market policy was now more likely rather than statist policy.

I’ll close today’s column by putting myself in the position of an intelligent leftist.

I would know better than to score an own-goal by talking about the non-bailout bailout. So what would I say if contacted by a reporter? Here are the points I would make.

• Employment numbers in Argentina are not impressive.
• Income data in Argentina is not impressive.
• Inflation is still about 25 percent on an annualized basis.
• Interest rates are still very high.
• International investors are still reluctant to buy Argentine debt.
• More than 40 percent of workers are in the shadow economy.

There is data to support all of these complaints. Argentina still has major challenges (as I wrote yesterday).

So how would I respond, assuming I’m back to normal and no longer an intelligent leftist?

I would simply respond by pointing out that you don’t fix 70 years of bad Peronist policy in just two years. Milei has made great progress (most of the above variables are getting better), but my rough estimate is that he’s only accomplished about 25 percent of what’s needed.

He has to win reelection next year and his party need to win control of the legislature. If that happens, I think it’s possible that he could accomplish about 75 percent of what’s needed by the end of the decade.

Let’s wish him luck – especially since we need a positive role model for the rest of the world.

P.S. In a conversation with some free-market people in Argentina a few days ago, I said it’s realistic to hope that Argentina climbs into the top-50 for economic liberty by the time Milei leaves office. That won’t achieve his goal of being #1, but it will almost certainly be the world’s biggest-ever improvement in economic liberty.