In official speeches and sympathetic editorials abroad, President Javier Milei is hailed as the radical surgeon who finally dared to cut deep enough. The chainsaw worked, and the patient is said to have survived. But on the streets, in shuttered factories, in supermarkets where carts roll half empty, the story sounds very different. Consumption has collapsed to historic lows. Nearly half of households are scrambling to survive through side jobs, debt, or the quiet liquidation of savings. Formal employment is shrinking. Construction sites are frozen mid-pour. And two years after Milei took office, Argentina's economy is producing little more than it did before he arrived. In this report, we are putting Milei's economic model under the microscope.

According to a report from Martín Rapetti, the economic director of Equilibra, an economic analysis centre in Argentina, economic activity has been effectively stagnant since the beginning of 2025, with output levels nearly identical to those of the third quarter of 2023, before Milei assumed power. After a historic collapse during the first phase of adjustment in 2024, the economy rebounded temporarily, albeit mechanically - and then suddenly stopped.