Ricardo Pascoe Pierce
Argentina repudiated Peronism, Kirchnerism, leftism, and the populist rhetoric accompanying those governments for over two decades. During that time, it has received political support from Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro, Lula Da Silva, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The economic management has been erratic, leading Argentina to be the worst-managed economy in Latin America. It has sought to present itself as an alternative economic model to what it rhetorically identifies as the enemy to be defeated: neoliberalism.
By neoliberalism, they identify free market policies, free movement of capital, strictly enforced rule of law, freedom to negotiate wages without state intervention, global trade, and the reduction of the State to a regulatory role rather than a business administrator. They claim that it aims at the ruthless exploitation of labor.
Painting by Salvador Dalí on ineteconomics.org
But it turns out that, outside of the increasing role of the State in economic management, Peronism in Argentina, Lula in Brazil, Petro in Colombia, Boric in Chile, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico administer neoliberal, globalist economic policies and encourage foreign direct investment in all their countries, for which they require prudent and legally defined fiscal policies and public spending. And they continue with the ruthless exploitation of labor.
Mexico, in particular, is tied, even constitutionally, to the U.S. economy through the CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC, which President López Obrador himself signed. The CUSMA/USMCA/T-MEC confirms the “neoliberal” market economy model in all its expressions. Any hint of verbal and rhetorical rebellion on the part of the president is viewed with disdain, even though it is objectively a threat to the Mexican economy and the more than 30 million Mexicans living in the United States.
Why is this explanation about Latin American rulers who claim to be leftist but, in reality, apply neoliberal economic policies that they rhetorically repudiate? It is relevant because the governments of the Latin American left are rapidly losing their credibility and effectiveness while their electoral support evaporates. Petro and Boric are experiencing high rejection levels, Lula annulled with Congress against him, and Lopez Obrador fears defeat next year.
Milei’s victory in Argentina is an unmistakable sign that these rhetorical, populist, and hypocritical positions of the left in Latin America have an expiration date. For example, the policy of all those governments of using social programs and giving away money hand over fist to secure winning votes does not necessarily work. It is said that Massa would have spent close to 10 billion dollars in social support in the last months of his campaign.
The general political trend in Latin America would be marking a turn towards the political center, with more right-wing or conservative leanings. The tiredness of leftist rhetoric without results or improvements has become present and is spreading throughout the continent.
These are complex transformation processes and respond to cycles in the history of our region. One of the consequences will be political for the autocratic regimes of the region: Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. What is happening in Argentina is the confirmation of a fundamental principle of democracy: alternation is the cornerstone for the development of countries. Those countries that refuse alternation are the ones that will cease to be referents and will tend to disappear, if not physically, certainly in terms of their political influence. Lopez Obrador was wrong to openly support Petro, who has turned out to be a failure, and now Massa in Argentina. But he did so because every defeat signals him that alternation in Mexico is not only a possibility but an inevitability.
Massa’s defeat replicates waves throughout the region. And it reverberates in López Obrador’s ears.
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