As recently as last Tuesday, Argentina’s peso had slumped to a record low, and its bonds were selling off as traders prepared for the weekend election.
US President Donald Trump hailed Javier Milei after the Argentine president’s political party staged a comeback victory in Sunday’s midterm elections, vindicating the extraordinary financial backing the US arranged for its South American ally.
“That was a big win,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One Monday, referring to Milei’s party winning the most votes in an election seen as an assessment of his aggressive moves to revamp Argentina’s long-beleaguered economy. “Not only did he win, he won by a lot,” Trump said.
Trump’s backing for his fellow conservative was part of a broader push to secure a political shift across Latin America, with elections pending in a number of nations. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent oversaw a series of unorthodox steps aimed at stabilizing Argentine assets after the peso had plunged in the wake of Milei’s party suffering a stinging defeat in a key provincial ballot last month.
That bet, involving well over $1 billion in peso purchases according to market estimates, appears to have paid off in spades. Should the Argentine currency in Monday’s trading session climb at a similar magnitude to that seen in cryptocurrency markets in the wake of the election, the US could be on course for hundreds of millions of dollars in gains.
“That election made a lot of money for the United States,” Trump said Monday. “The bonds have gone up,” he said.
