Javier Milei Meets Trump, Elon Musk as DOGE

Argentina’s self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist President Javier Meli became the first foreign leader to visit President-elect Donald Trump after winning a second term, attending a gala dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Thursday. Arrived in Florida. Miley was a VIP speaker.

“The world is a much better place, and the winds of freedom are blowing much stronger,” now that Trump has been elected, Meli said.

He called Trump’s November 5 victory “the greatest political comeback in history, defying the political establishment at the cost of his own life.”

Miley also name-checked another attendee in the gala crowd: Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

“I would like to thank the great Elon Musk for the wonderful work he is doing to save humanity,” Meli said through a spokesperson.

Miley’s presence in Florida on Thursday, and her warm words for Trump and Musk, offered a glimpse into what is an emerging, and important, dynamic between the two American billionaires and a leader who has promised to save Argentina’s long-struggling economy with a “shock”. therapy” – profound cost-cutting and reduction in regulations.

Musk and Meli are already big fans of each other. They have met several times, and Miley has visited the Tesla factory and posted photos of the two together.

A photo posted in September shows Musk wearing a “Dark Mega” hat with the Trump campaign logo written in black on Miley.

Photos posted on social media from Thursday’s gala showed Musk, Miley and Trump together, all smiling.

Musk has spent the past week at Mar-a-Lago, serving as one of Trump’s closest advisers as the president-elect fills out his cabinet with unexpected picks — many of whom have led federal agencies of their own kind. Has promised to bring shock therapy. has been selected for leadership.

Trump also announced that Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a “Department of Government Efficiency,” dedicated to cutting the federal budget sharply.

The announcement fulfilled a Trump campaign promise to give Musk a key role in advising his administration on government spending. Despite the name, DOGE will not be a federal agency, instead operating as an advisory panel outside the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Still, Musk claims he can cut $2 trillion from the roughly $6.75 trillion U.S. budget. The only place where cuts on this scale have been implemented in recent years is Argentina, under Meli.

“All government spending, it either becomes inflation or direct taxes. The Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that,” Musk said at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last month.

To understand the origins of Musk’s vision to cut the federal budget by a third, consider what Miley has accomplished.

Since taking office last December, Meli has cut Argentina’s federal spending by 32 percent, according to the Center for Argentine Political Economy, or CEPA.

In a country where annual inflation is above 300% and has destabilized the country, this October, inflation in Argentina reached its lowest level since 2017: 2.7%.

Much of Miley’s agenda comes down to cutting federal spending. And according to Meli, Musk has turned to Argentina’s leadership to find out how.

“The United States has seen our example and is following it,” Meli said at the Metaday Argentina conference in Buenos Aires on Tuesday. “Musk is speaking. [Minister of Deregulation] Federico Sturzenegger on Deregulating the American Economy.”

In Argentina, Meli reduced the number of ministries by 13, down to just nine. More than 30,000 public sector workers were laid off. They stopped all infrastructure projects.

The drastic cuts have had equally harsh consequences, plunging Argentina’s economy into a deep recession. Argentina’s GDP fell by more than 5 percent in the first quarter of 2024.

However, the World Bank estimates that the worst is over, and that overall contraction will be around 3.5 percent by the end of the year. The bank also predicts that Argentina’s GDP will grow by 5 percent in 2025.

Certainly, cuts of this magnitude would be more difficult to implement in the US than in Argentina. To begin with, Argentina’s national budget is much smaller than that of the United States at about $101 billion, less than that of New York City.

But unlike Meli, it’s unclear whether American voters have given Trump the spending-cutting mandate that Argentine voters have given their president.

Reducing the federal budget was Milli’s No. 1 campaign promise. He often carried a chain with him on the campaign trail as a symbol of his commitment to cutting government spending.

Meli won his election last year by 10 points, indicating that a significant majority of voters were on board with his plan.

Trump, meanwhile, campaigned on securing the border and improving the economy, but mostly through tax cuts and tariffs. Financial restraint was not prominently featured in Trump’s campaign platform.

This fact has not gone unnoticed by the markets.

Since Trump’s election, long-term US interest rates have risen significantly, suggesting a possible return of so-called bond vigilantes.

Coined in 1983 by Ed Yardini of Yardini Research, the phrase “bond vigilantism” refers to the notion that if fiscal and monetary authorities do not control their spending, the bond market will impose excessive borrowing costs. will do

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Sylvester Stallone’s name.