Argentinian President Javier Milei’s recent success in his country’s midterm elections may prove a model for President Donald Trump as the U.S. 2026 midterms fall into the national focus. Milei’s party won in a landslide over the weekend and gained seats in both chambers, despite economic tumult from his restructuring efforts.
Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, took 64 seats in the House of Deputies, while his party and allied groups took 14 seats in the Senate, CBS News reported. They previously held only 37 seats in the lower chamber and six seats in the Senate.
Trump himself celebrated Milei’s win, calling him a “Trump Endorsed Candidate” and saying “[h]e’s making us all look good.” Though the pair are not a perfect ideological match, Trump and Milei are generally viewed as allies and both have positioned themselves as anti-globalist, outsider figures.
Platform of mass deregulation
The libertarian Milei first secured election on a platform of mass deregulation and dramatically reducing the scope of the government in a bid to clamp down on inflation, which had spiraled out of control in the country. His efforts drew comparisons to the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) of the Trump administration. Musk himself emulated Milei’s brand by also wielding a chainsaw on stage.
While Milei’s reforms did bring results, he also had to weather a number of corruption scandals, intense international pressure, and a degree of economic tumult stemming in part from his reforms. Milei declined to make an about-face on policy, but had a secret weapon in the form of the Trump administration.
The U.S. Treasury Department offered Milei a bailout of $20 billion ahead of the elections and Trump himself suggested that the U.S. would withdraw its support for Argentina if Milei’s party faltered.
“If he wins we’re staying with him, and if he doesn’t win, we’re gone,” he said during Milei’s October visit to the White House.
Trump can hardly offer himself a bailout or threaten to withdraw support for his own government should Republicans lose control of either chamber. Accordingly, he can only take one lesson away from Milei’s approach: double down.
Milei as a standard-bearer
Milei’s success will not just enable him to continue forward with his own policies for the next legislative cycle, it will allow him to serve as a flag-carrier for Trump-style reforms to which American voters can look to gauge its potential. Speaking on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast on Monday, Heritage Foundation Center for Energy and Climate Director Diana Furchtgott-Roth said that “Trump is happy […] because it vindicates what he is doing in the United States. President Milei’s victory can give a hope that whoever President Trump’s successor is will also win a significant victory in 2028.”
“Milei is trying to do what DOGE did, except more,” she added. “He is trying to cut government spending. He’s trying to revamp the economy, he’s trying to lower taxes. He’s trying to get the private sector to invest in his country.”
“The challenge for Milei is to show gains, not to go too far, get those wins under his belt and keep going, so that everybody can see the progress,” Furchtgott-Roth concluded.
Foundation for Defense of Democracies Founder Cliff May, for his part, echoed that sentiment on the same program, saying “South America is also a place where they took the socialist road to development and didn’t get there as a result. And Argentina may be the most interesting example.”
“And I’ve been to Argentina and talked to very smart people, and they just cling to Peronism, even though it has failed them for more than a century and led them to under-development,” he added. “And he’s trying to fix that, and Trump understands that, and it’s been very supportive of him, and I think rightly so.”
A potential foil?
While Trump and Milei move forward with their own policies as examples for voters, the president may benefit from the expected election of Zohran Mamdani, a socialist, to lead New York City.
“I think he can do a lot of damage to New York City in a very short period of time,” May opined. “We’ve seen communism and socialism and Islamism destroy other parts of the world over time. And so, you know, maybe this does a lot of damage to the Democratic Party, because so many Democrats decided to endorse him.”
“It does appear that Democratic Socialists of America, which did not used to be the same as the Democratic Party, has now taken over the Democratic Party,” he added. “Hard for me to predict, but I do think it could be consequential.”
Tariff tumult
While Trump’s economic reordering has relied more on tariffs and trade than Milei’s chainsaw-slasher approach to deregulation, his approach has faced comparable pushback and generated market chaos of its own.
In April, Trump announced “Liberation Day” tariffs on nearly every country in the world, though he quickly lowered rates on cooperative countries and has secured trade deals with a number of key partners, notably the UK and the European Union.
The initial imposition of tariffs caused a significant drop across nearly every major stock market index, though Trump’s negotiation of trade deals with partners such as Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines has stabilized markets to some degree.
Trump has nearly completed agreements with the entire Pacific Rim, though China remains the primary holdout. Despite an initial agreement framework that Washington reached with Beijing earlier this year, China and the U.S. have yet to conclude a final deal.
But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday suggested that the administration would hold course on the issue and indicated that it had secured a “substantial framework” for upcoming trade talks. He further confirmed that the White House had finalized a deal with Beijing over the purchase of TikTok, to be signed on Thursday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up by 0.71% on the news, while the Nasdaq rose 1.86% and the S&P 500 soared by 1.23%. Though economic data remains somewhat mixed, completion of the trade negotiations could see key economic indicators stabilize in the coming year and give Trump and the Republicans a solid record to run on.
State of play
The GOP, to some extent, has an easier task ahead of itself than did Milei’s party. Republicans currently control the House and Senate, though they are fighting traditional headwinds that favor the out-of-power party during midterms.
The prospects of holding the 53-47 Republican Senate appear strong, however, with fewer Republicans up for reelection and several vulnerable Democratic seats presenting pickup opportunities. The narrowly divided House, however, appears dicier. But the GOP has moved to redistricting several red-leaning states to tilt the scales in its favor and could gain as many as 19 seats should the Supreme Court rule against race-based congressional districts under the Voting Rights Act.
Notably, Trump has slightly over a year to bring things in order for the American midterms and to generally stabilize the economy. Should he succeed without making a major policy shift, moreover, he will position his party for a likely strong showing.
Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent at Just the News. Follow him on X.
