IF circumstances weren’t the way they were I’d feel quite sorry for Argentines. Imagine believing you were the coolest people in South America and then having Javier Milei for a president.
I usually try not to fall into the trap of insulting their heads of state, although admittedly there was once an iconic incident, but it must be deeply humiliating for such proud people to watch their president offer himself as a kindred spirit to Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, when this is the guy you actually voted for.
OK, so I don’t suppose I’ve ever had great things to say about successive leaders of our neighbouring country. It would be difficult when their main aim has been to cause varying degrees of difficulty for the people of these Islands.
But at the same time I’ve followed their careers to an extent and noted achievements, whether improvements in incomes, pensions and living standards, or the prosecution of former military junta leaders.
So why has a country with a strong Peronist, unionised and state-interventionist political tradition ended up with a libertarian president running around humping the leg of a right winger like Trump?
Well, unfortunately the achievements of former leaders often weren’t durable and presumably Argentines elected Milei because they had become exhausted with the existing model of chronic inflation and economic stagnation.
So now in Argentina you’ve got a kind of weird tension: Milei, the Trump-style populist, governing a country with deep Peronist, trade union and public sector traditions.
But apparently things are getting harder for him.
According to La Nación, among unionised Argentine workers a February 2026 poll found 70.8% disapproved of Milei’s government, while his national approval has also fallen considerably.
Anyway, this is precisely why the Argentine president is now screeching like an ugly little banshee about the Falklands. Because when your ratings in the polls fall, how do you distract people from your failings? You start telling them to be upset about the ‘Malvinas’.
We know it, he knows it and every intelligent Argentine knows it too.
