October 14, 2025 - 11:45pm
It may seem quaint in the wake of Donald Trump’s historic Gaza deal to quibble over his disregard for liberal norms. Yet his meeting with Javier Milei at the White House on Tuesday offered a fresh reminder of that instinct: Trump issued an unusually overt threat to Argentine voters — support Milei or the US will yank aid.
Despite the economic challenges facing Argentina, Trump had no public hesitation about backing his embattled ally, who is up for reelection in 2027 but whose party faces midterms later this month. “If he loses, we will not be generous with Argentina,” said Trump. According to the US President, future “approvals” would be “somewhat subject to who wins the election”.
As Milei’s economy floundered in September, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent orchestrated a bailout. As Matt Stoller explained, investors “panicked” over poor local election results for Milei’s party. In response, they “sold off Argentine assets, leading to the beginnings of a financial crisis. So Scott Bessent stepped in, and is now directly putting the U.S. government behind Milei’s government, saying America will do ‘whatever it takes’ to save that regime and the hedge funds who have invested in it.”
Meanwhile, Argentina cut export taxes on grains — a boon for China, once the largest buyer of American soybeans. This infuriated some Trump supporters including Sen. Chuck Grassley, a soybean farmer himself, who posted on X: “Farmers VERY upset abt Argentina selling soybeans to China right after USA bail out Still ZERO USA soybeans sold to China.”
Asked by Philip Wegmann of Real Clear Politics if his rescue package for Milei was “America First,” Trump replied, “It’s really meant to help a good financial philosophy. Argentina was very successful at one point and it can be again.” The President lavished Milei with praise. “It’s an honour to have you here,” he said. “And I just want to tell you that your career has been an amazing one, and it’s going to continue with the election.”
“You’re going to win the election,” Trump assured Milei. “We’re going to endorse you. I’m going to endorse you today. Fully endorse you.”
Now Argentine voters must weigh the fate of the American bailout as they head to the polls. For what it’s worth, what Trump is doing is hardly unprecedented. From Richard Nixon’s bid to make Chile’s economy “scream” to Joe Biden’s pressure over Viktor Shokin in Ukraine, such tactics aren’t new — though they’re usually conducted behind closed doors or cloaked in diplomatic language.
In South America, where Trump sees both the risk of conflict in Venezuela and a rising tide of Leftist populism, he and Bessent appear to have calculated that shoring up Milei through the storm is a worthwhile transaction.
By invoking “good financial philosophy,” Trump made a token effort to frame the bailout in diplomatic terms — a familiar move — but what tends to linger are his most forceful statements and overt pressures. That, too, is deliberate. It’s a strategy that leaves his critics on the defensive, forced to answer for their own histories of similar tactics, which over time have eroded public patience after years of costly foreign entanglements. Trump may simply grasp what his predecessors forgot: in politics, perception is often more powerful than policy.
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