Milei Faces Protests, Sagging Poll Numbers Over Economy

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.

The highlights this week: Argentine President Javier Milei faces mounting protests, the Andean Community seeks to resolve a trade dispute between Colombia and Ecuador, and Guatemala gets a new attorney general.

On Tuesday, tens of thousands of Argentines—and perhaps as many as hundreds of thousands, according to one government estimate—demonstrated in Buenos Aires against President Javier Milei’s austerity policies.

More than halfway into Milei’s four-year term, such protests have become relatively frequent. The president’s approval rating fell to around 35 percent last month, according to AtlasIntel. Though some demonstrators on Tuesday carried signs referring to recent corruption accusations against Milei’s chief of staff, their main frustration was over the economy.

On the campaign trail in 2023, Milei was open about the fact that his aggressive policy plans would cause economic disruption. In his inaugural address, he said, “[T]he situation will get worse in the short term,” with consequences for “employment, real wages, and the number of poor and destitute people.”

Those predictions soon came true, but Argentina saw improvements in other metrics that Milei had flagged as key to tackling the root causes of economic dysfunction. Both the inflation rate and deficit dropped. And after shrinking in 2023 and 2024, Argentina’s economy grew 4.4 percent in real terms last year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In October, many Argentines endorsed Milei’s party in midterm elections. However, economic pain has sharpened since then. When adjusted for inflation, average formal sector wages in February had fallen nearly 9 percent below their level in November 2023—the month before Milei took office.

Milei has focused on growing parts of the economy that employ relatively few people—such as mining and oil—while allowing job losses in sectors that became uncompetitive when he stripped away government support, such as manufacturing.

“Argentina’s recovery is moving faster in the macro data than in people’s lived experiences,” said Mariano Machado, the chief Americas analyst at consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. “The government has not clearly defined the state’s role in helping workers move into future-proofed jobs.”

Instead, Milei has often vilified his skeptics and targeted independent media. He has also leaned on ties with other right-wing leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In April, Milei made his third official visit to Israel and met pro-Trump billionaire Peter Thiel in Buenos Aires.

These international relationships give Milei more domestic room to maneuver. The United States pledged $20 billion in potential financial support for Argentina ahead of the country’s midterms last year. If Milei struggles to meet future sovereign debt payments, Machado said, it’s possible that the IMF or even the U.S. Treasury could provide fresh assistance.

Normally, unpopularity like what Milei is facing would benefit the political opposition. But Milei’s opponents do not appear to be rallying around a single figure.

A survey last month found that Argentina’s most popular politician was not the rising figurehead of the main opposition Peronist movement, Axel Kicillof—but instead Myriam Bregman, an official from a niche far-left party. Despite Bregman’s relatively high ratings, she lacks the nationwide infrastructure that has delivered many past victories to the Peronists.

As far as economic policy proposals go, Machado said, “on the opposition side, there is very little novelty. Milei’s program is still the only genuinely new offer on the table.”

Sunday, May 17: Brazil’s foreign minister visits Japan.

Monday, May 25, to Friday, May 29: The United States and Mexico hold a round of negotiations as part of a review of their trilateral trade deal with Canada.

Sunday, May 31: Colombia holds a presidential election.

Andean trade dispute. In a relatively rare assertion of its voice in regional affairs, the Andean Community—a four-country trade grouping—ruled last week that Colombia and Ecuador need to de-escalate their trade spat or face potential penalties. The other members of the group are Bolivia and Peru.

Ecuador kicked off the tit for tat in January, slapping a 30 percent tariff on some Colombian goods over accusations that Colombia had failed to ensure security at their shared border. Colombia retaliated, and Ecuador doubled down, leaving Colombia facing tariffs as high as 100 percent and Ecuador facing tariffs as high as 75 percent.

The Andean Community said the duties from both sides are inconsistent with the group’s principles and should be lifted within 10 business days, a deadline that expires next week.

Guatemala’s new AG. Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo named a new attorney general this month, Gabriel García Luna. He will replace María Consuelo Porras, who was sanctioned by dozens of countries on allegations of hampering anti-graft probes. Porras took office under Arévalo’s predecessor; she attempted to block Arévalo’s inauguration.

García Luna, a former judge and university professor, was chosen by a nominating committee of legal experts. He takes office on Monday, when Porras’s term officially ends, marking what Arévalo said would be a “new chapter” for rule of law in Guatemala.

Uruguayan roller coaster. A popular Uruguayan YouTube channel recently exemplified how comedy offers a window into a national identity. The channel Tremble, Tyrants—a line from the country’s national anthem—has amassed a loyal following by poking fun at the news in relatively sleepy Uruguay. School performances, weather forecasts, and tourism are all fair game.

Last week’s episode covered a new roller coaster at Uruguay’s main amusement park. (Its predecessor was sold to a theme park in Mexico 13 years ago.) Passengers reported that the roller coaster was short, slow, and not fear-inducing. Some complained that they felt overcharged for tickets, but others voiced affection for a ride they said matched Uruguay’s way of life.

Like the roller coaster, Uruguay has generally avoided the whiplash-inducing events shaking regional politics. The IMF estimates that the country’s economy will grow by around 1.8 percent this year, and key crime indicators fell in 2025. And though President Yamandú Orsi is ideologically opposed to Trump and his regional allies, he has generally steered clear of high-profile clashes with them.

A woman walks past an empty gas station in Havana on May 13.Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images

While the United States ramps up economic and military pressure on Cuba, it is also working multiple diplomatic channels to the island’s leadership. Cuba featured in separate meetings last week between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pope Leo XIV, as well as between Trump and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

For months, the Trump administration has stressed that it wants to see economic and political liberalization in Cuba and has dangled the prospect of military force to achieve it. Evidence of increased U.S. military surveillance flights near Cuba has trickled through to public flight-tracking databases and the press in recent weeks.

But Lula emerged from his White House meeting with Trump on May 7 saying he believed that the United States was not planning to invade Cuba, suggesting that Washington is floating some kind of negotiated transition to the regime in Havana.

Following Rubio’s visit to the Vatican, the U.S. State Department announced an offer of $100 million in humanitarian aid to Cuba. On Thursday, Cuba’s foreign minister said Havana was generally open to accepting aid offered in “good faith and in genuine intent at cooperation.”

The aid is sorely needed, in part due to U.S. actions toward the island. Cuba’s energy minister said on Wednesday that the country had run out of diesel and oil reserves amid continuing U.S. fuel restrictions. Ongoing blackouts led hundreds of people to demonstrate in Havana on Wednesday.