A Trump bump in the road

The proverb “All good things come in threes” does not work for President Javier Milei after the recent hat-trick of adverse (at least for him) election results abroad – just two weekends ago, Brazilian President Luiz Fernando Lula da Silva snatched victory out of the jaws of defeat against the far right’s Flávio Bolsonaro; two days later his close ally Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu stumbled into gridlock after the elections there, while the following Tuesday saw the cataclysmic meltdown of Donald Trump’s Republicans in the United States.

No way of sugar-coating a washout of such dimensions – the blue tide of the Democratic landslide not only swept over such classic swing states as Ohio but also such Republican strongholds as Texas (ousting a three-term governor) and Kansas where their domination stretched back decades or even almost a century. Impossible for Trump to cry fraud or trot out the customary excuse of governments almost invariably losing midterms, instead attributing the catastrophe to his name not being on the ballot after arguing for weeks that it was and thus cementing his electorally negative image as an autistic MAGAlomaniac.

The Republican defeat bodes ill for Milei – but not necessarily because the US swing to the left can be neatly extrapolated to next year’s elections here, as many Kirchnerites fondly imagine. While final figures are still not available, Milei would sign up for the Republican percentage of approximately 43 percent in a flash because it would guarantee him first-round re-election. Turnout is entirely different in the two countries – never much above half the electorate in the United States at the best of times where voting is voluntary, while close to 80 percent in the last general elections here where it is compulsory.

Instead the danger to Milei lies rather in the apparent vindication of isolationism within the Republican Party – at least according to US Vice-President J.D. Vance, who holds the Iran war almost exclusively to blame for his party’s electoral annihilation. While some might argue that thus clashing with Trump would rule him out of the Republican succession, this isolationism alongside the Democratic Congress majorities spells trouble for the more globally committed diplomatic and economic czars of the Trump administration, Marco Rubio and Scott Bessent – the latter abandoned at least temporarily by the markets with Dow Jones soaring three percent the day after the Republican debacle, while even JP Morgan joins Vance in calling for an end to the war. If Trump now cuts off US$4 billion in military aid to Israel, what chance would Milei have of another US$20 billion like the currency swap bailing him out in last year’s midterms here? No wonder Argentina’s country risk rating topped 800 points in midweek, giving even more pause to the investment vital for pulling the economy out of stagnation.

Milei’s chances next year will also hinge on the Peronist opposition’s interpretation of the Democratic “blueout.” The triumph of the likes of Michigan’s new Senator Abdul el-Sayed (thus suggesting that the earlier win of another Muslim socialist, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, was no accident) might convince Kirchnerism that they can run a candidate no less ideologically uncompromising than Milei, rather than hide behind the more moderate image of a Daniel Scioli, Alberto Fernández or Sergio Massa (all of whom lost or ended badly). This could rebound in Milei’s favour because should he fail to surmount the opposition of at least half the provincial governors to removing the PASO primaries, a Peronist win there might have a similar effect to their resounding Buenos Aires provincial election triumph last year – spooking many voters into rallying around Milei next time in order to avoid a Kirchnerite comeback.

Yet it might be a mistake to read half a dozen Democratic socialists entering Congress among some 470 races as a swing to the left. An El-Sayed could never have won in a swing state, never mind Kansas – the sheer dimensions of the Democratic triumph are a measure of the number of moderate faces they were obliged to run in such hostile terrain and who are now entering Congress. The best Peronist bet could still be to run a moderate contrasting with Milei’s extremism but they may not see it that way.

With so many variables and with almost a year still to go for the elections here, even such a shock result as the US midterms should not change the need to keep an open mind. An incumbent won with a nail-biter in Brazil and crashed to an epic defeat in the United States while Israel decided almost nothing – anything can happen.