Donald Trump says US support for Argentina is ‘gone’ if Javier Milei suffers election losses

Ciara Nugent in Buenos Aires

Donald Trump said a $20bn US aid package for Argentina was contingent on Javier Milei’s political success, piling pressure on the libertarian leader ahead of the country’s midterm elections this month.

“The election is coming up very soon . . . I think the victory is very important . . . our approvals are somewhat subject to who wins the election,” Trump said at a meeting with the Argentine president at the White House on Tuesday.

Argentina will hold legislative elections on October 26 when Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party will try to expand its minority share of congressional seats. The next presidential election in Argentina is in 2027.

“He may not win, but I think he’s going to win. And if he wins, we’re staying with him. And if he doesn’t win, we’re gone,” Trump added.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on which election Trump was referring to.

The US Treasury announced last Thursday that it had intervened to prop up Argentina’s peso and sealed a $20bn swap line to give its cash-strapped central bank access to dollars. The aid has defused a market crisis that had threatened to hurt Milei, Trump’s strongest ideological ally in Latin America, ahead of the midterms.

The price of Argentina’s US dollar bonds maturing in 2035 fell by almost 4 cents on Tuesday to 57 cents on the dollar, or a yield of about 14.2 per cent.

US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said at Tuesday’s meeting that he was “confident” that Milei’s libertarian party will do well in the October 26 polls.

“This aid is predicated on robust policies and going back to the failed Peronist policies will cause a US rethink,” he said, referring to Argentina’s main left-leaning Peronist opposition movement.

Milei’s pro-business government fell into a political crisis last month after a shock landslide loss to the Peronists at local elections in Buenos Aires province, where almost 40 per cent of Argentines live.The defeat triggered a run on the peso, forcing the government to burn through scarce foreign exchange reserves. Prior to the US intervention last week, economists had warned the government might be forced to sharply devalue the peso from its fixed exchange rate band before the midterms.

Milei is hoping to improve on his 34 per cent vote share from Buenos Aires province at the national polls. Pollsters predict he will win a vote share ranging from the low to high 30s.

Analysts say support for the government has fallen in recent months as economic and wage growth have stalled. Corruption scandals involving Milei’s top advisers have also dented approval ratings.The peso fell 0.2 per cent after Trump’s remarks on Tuesday just before trading closed. However, it remained up 5 per cent since the US Treasury’s intervention last Thursday, close to its level before Milei’s crisis began last month.

In a post on X, Jorge Taiana, the Peronists’ leading candidate to represent Buenos Aires province in the lower house, accused Trump of “extorting the Argentine people” and said the electorate should not “accept that the US president tells us who to vote for”.

Milei’s spokesperson Manuel Adorni argued that Trump’s remarks referred not to the midterms but to the 2027 presidential election.

“The United States’s support, as President Donald Trump himself said, is based on Argentina having a government that defends the correct ideas.” He added: “If Argentina follows the path of socialism or takes a step back in 2027, none of this would happen.”

Additional reporting by George Steer