Milei pleads for patience as growth slows and approval falls

President Javier Milei asked Argentines to be patient with the country’s economic turnaround, employing a rare tone of humility amid declining poll numbers and a worsening outlook for blue-collar industries.

In a lengthy X post Thursday, the libertarian lashed out at the media for exaggerating the economy’s problems and his top political rivals, or “irresponsible psychopaths,” for trying to destabilise markets ahead of last year’s midterm elections. But Milei also reiterated a request he made in his inauguration speech over two years ago.

“We know that the last months were hard,” Milei said. “That’s why we’re asking for patience. This is the right path. Changing it would be to blow up what’s been achieved.”

Milei admitted that the market volatility before the October midterms had lasting effects of “higher interest rates, less economic activity and more inflation.”

His post came out an hour after the national statistics agency reported that industrial production had dropped 8.7 percnt from a year ago in February and construction had also declined, albeit by less than one percent. Both sectors have posted significant job losses since Milei took office and make up a major portion of the private sector workforce.

To be sure, Milei has notched some victories in recent days. Poverty fell to 28 percent in the second half of last year, the lowest level since 2018 and nearly half the level from the start of Milei’s government.

Yet as unemployment has risen, inflation came in higher than expected at 2.9 percent in February and Economy Minister Luis Caputo recently warned it would accelerate again in March on higher oil prices stemming from the war in Iran.

Milei’s approval rating fell to 36.4 percent in March, the lowest since he took office, according to LatAm Pulse, a survey conducted by AtlasIntel for Bloomberg News. While the economy grew in 2025, growth has slowed, and workers on formal payrolls still haven’t seen salaries return to pre-Milei levels in inflation-adjusted terms.

Overall, the libertarian insisted Argentina is better off today even if he knows everyone doesn’t feel that way.

“Argentina is a lot, A LOT, better than in 2023,” Milei said, referring to when he took office. “Does this mean that everyone is better off? No. And it would be intellectually dishonest to affirm that. The processes of improvement don’t move at the same speed for everyone: Statistics reflect averages, and we know that there’s people living the extremes of the distribution.”