A year after becoming president, Javier Milei has been praised inside and outside Argentina for reining in galloping inflation. But his economic policies have inflicted widespread hardship.

When libertarian President Javier Milei assumed office one year ago, Argentine supermarkets were marking price increases on an almost daily basis. Middle-class families tried to spend their rapidly depreciating pesos as quickly as they got them,

Argentina's libertarian President Javier Milei laid out a bleak vision in his maiden speech a year ago amid an economic crisis. The crowd in front of Congress cheered his every word. A year later Milei has managed to pull off a gravity-defying feat: keeping that fervor burning and avoiding tipping the country into fiery protest even as he rolls out severe spending cuts that have crimped the economy and pushed up poverty.