One of the biggest takeaways from Davos this week was confirmation of something we already knew: Much of Europe is a shell of its former self. The continent’s bureaucratic stagnation and cultural decline were on full display — even Emmanuel Macron’s sunglasses couldn’t hide it.
Donald Trump pointed this out. “Certain places in Europe are not even recognizable. Here in Europe, we’ve seen the fate that the radical left tried to impose upon America,” he said during his own speech. “Friends come back from different places and say, ‘I don’t recognize it.’ And that’s not in a positive way. That’s in a very negative way. I love Europe, and I want to see Europe go good, but it’s not heading in the right direction.”
While all of that got its fair share of attention, what you may have missed was Argentina’s President Javier Milei representing the rise of the Western Hemisphere (not you, Canada) with a rousing speech on liberty and prosperity, condemning almost everything these European nations currently represent.
“I stand here before you to state categorically that Machiavelli is dead,” he began, later adding, “What is just can’t be inefficient, nor can what is efficient be unjust.”
Milei went on to explain that “only the ethical principles underlying Western culture can serve as efficiency criteria when it comes to making public policy decisions.” He then laid out how socialism, wrapped in a pretty package, will be the “downfall of Western civilization itself.” He also offered up Venezuela as a prime example.
…in my 2025 address, I show that the agendas and policies being promoted by various international organizations and fora were nothing more than a whole set of socialist policies elegantly packaged to deceive people of noble spirit who were full of good intentions, but this always led to the same catastrophic results.
That is why we must never forget the words of Thomas Sowell on socialism, of which he acknowledged the merit that it sounds very appealing, but whose flip side is that it always ends badly, appallingly badly. In fact, and beyond the continuous disasters caused by socialism throughout the 20th century, we can see the terrible damage done in Venezuela, not only 80% collapse in GDP, but something far worse still. Namely, the establishment of a bloody narco-dictatorship whose terrorist tentacles spread across our entire continent in the Americas. Therefore, today more than ever, in the face of the ethical and moral degradation afflicting the West as a result of embracing the new socialist agenda, it is necessary to once again promote the ideas of freedom.
But Milei’s speech wasn’t just a warning. It was filled with pure optimism and “good news.” The thing is, the good news was coming from the Americas, not Europe.
“The world has begun to awaken. The best proof of this is what is happening in the Americas with the rebirth of the ideas of liberty,” he said. “Therefore, the Americas will be the beacon of light that will once again illuminate the entire West, thereby repaying the civilizational debt with expressions of gratitude towards the foundations in Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Judeo-Christian values.”
— Milei in English – Official Account (@jmilei_english) January 22, 2026
“We have a better future ahead, but that better future exists only if we return to the roots of the West, which means returning through the ideas of liberty,” he concluded.
It’s something I’ve been writing about for months. Many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and even our own country as of the 2024 elections, are swinging away from socialism and the corruption, crime, and chaos it creates, and it’s almost had a domino effect. Just in the last few months, Chile, Bolivia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Honduras have rejected communism and elected leaders who favor free-market principles, individual freedom, and the Western values of which the Argentine president speaks. From Ecuador to the Dominican Republic, others had already done so, and with several countries holding elections in 2026, more could follow.
Without a doubt, Milei is the leader in the region who is charting the course.
He’s got the receipts to prove it and shared them during his speech:
Beyond the enormous achievements we have exhibited during these years in office, having eradicated a fiscal deficit of 15% of GDP, reducing inflation from 300 to 30%, lowering country risk by 2,500 basis points and restoring economic growth with poverty falling from 57 to 27%, pursuing public policies guided by ethical and moral values, I would like to focus on the case of the Ministry of Deregulation, or as we call it back home, the Ministry of Increasing Returns.
This ministry is inspired by the evolution of per capita GDP since the beginning of the Christian era, and it is in the shape of a hockey stick. This figure arises from the fact that until the year 1800, per capita GDP remained almost constant, and from that point onwards, it increased 15-fold in a context in which the size of the population increased tenfold. In parallel as GDP grew, extreme poverty fell from levels of 95% to 10%.
But don’t just take his word for it. All of Milei’s accomplishments have been validated domestically, regionally, and internationally. During Argentina’s October 2025 midterm elections, despite low expectations, Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party added congressional seats in landslide victories, providing the president with veto-proof leverage.
In January, his international approval ratings skyrocketed. According to the Global Leader Approval Rating Tracker, 60% of adults around the world view him positively, more than almost every other world leader.
He’s also earned the respect of world leaders, particularly our own. On Thursday, Milei became a founding member and, so far, one of only two leaders from Latin America to join Trump’s Board of Peace. (Paraguay’s Santiago Peña is the other.)
President @JMilei signs as a founding member of the Board of Peace, together with @realDonaldTrump. MAGA 🇺🇸🤝🇦🇷 pic.twitter.com/W68r472Rwu
— Milei in English – Official Account (@jmilei_english) January 22, 2026
This comes just weeks after United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that Argentina has repaid the U.S. for the currency swap framework it provided last year to help stabilize the Argentine economy, proving that he’s not only one of our country’s greatest allies, but a reliable economic partner.
Milei’s Argentina is also leading the way for others in the region. As I’ve written recently, he’s in the midst of coordinating with 10 or so other countries to form a bloc of nations that embrace the ideas of freedom, promote free markets, desire limited government, prioritize private property, and oppose leftist culture and ideology.
While the bloc hasn’t been formalized, nor have any official members been announced, it’s likely to be some combination of Argentina, Chile, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago. Some of these countries’ leaders are already working together to stand up to the region’s leftists. For example, many of them came together at an emergency meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) earlier this month to block Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia from issuing a public statement, condemning the United States for making a dramatic move to liberate the people of Venezuela and demanding the release of Nicolás Maduro.
Milei’s rhetoric — and more importantly, his actions — are a stark contrast to the dreary and draconian lectures we hear from many European leaders, as they lose their own nations to mass migration, woke social engineering, collapsing public trust, and economic decline. Meanwhile, the mood across the Western Hemisphere is notably different, justifying his optimism. With leaders like Milei and Trump leading the way and demonstrating what happens when you do make Western values the guiding principles of your actions, that movement will only grow.
You can watch Milei’s entire speech from Davos here. I highly recommend it — he’s the smartest man in the room, and I say that not actually knowing who else was actually in the room.
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