Agustina Vergara Cid: Trump resembles these South American authoritarians
When President Trump fired the Commissioner of Labor Statistics earlier this month, hours after a weak jobs report, it gave me a déjà vu from my youth in Argentina. In 2007, leftist President Cristina Kirchner similarly fired those responsible for government statistics and installed loyalists who’d issue “friendlier” numbers.
Trump and the Kirchner coalition sit on opposite sides of the conventional left–right political spectrum, yet they share myriad commonalities. Why? And what can the case of Argentina teach Americans?
The Kirchnerist coalition governed Argentina for nearly 20 years—from 2003 to 2015, and then again from 2019 to 2023. During that time, their left-leaning, nationalistic policies caused a 211% annual inflation rate and crushing poverty in a country once prosperous. They are largely responsible for the long-standing chaos that President Javier Milei is attempting to fix.
From 2007 to 2015, the Kirchner government manipulated statistics on poverty and inflation. Kirchner controlled INDEC (the National Institute for Statistics and Census) after it issued allegedly “inaccurate” reports that reflected poorly on the government. INDEC then began issuing reports that favored the regime (for example, by claiming poverty was at 4,7% in 2013, when independent agencies put it at 26-27%, before stopping issuing statistics altogether). These fake numbers were meant to manipulate Argentinians and make them question their own eyes.
Similarly, President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics due to the numbers being allegedly “rigged” against him. He’s nominated E.J. Antoni, a partisan pick widely criticized by other conservative economists. We don’t yet know whether “friendlier” numbers will be issued in the future, but we know the Trump administration has a history of attempting to re-write facts (e.g.: by claiming that Jan. 6 was “a day of love”).
The resemblance doesn’t end there.
Kirchner’s nationalist agenda imposed import restrictions that forced companies to manufacture locally or “balance” imports with exports. The Trump administration is trying to force local manufacturing and employment by imposing hefty tariffs on foreign goods.
When businesses raised prices due to myriad strangling regulations, the Kirchners admonished them alleging that they were “looters,” threatening and condemning them for trying to make a profit. Trump recently scolded and threatened Walmart for raising prices due to tariffs, declaring that they should “eat the tariffs” (including because they had “made billions of dollars last year”) and that he’d be “watching.”
The Kirchners attacked critical media, framing them as enemies. They sponsored an antitrust media law for large media groups they disapproved of. Donald Trump has said that dissenting “fake news media” are “the enemy of the people” and is targeting media companies for content he dislikes.
There are more commonalities, including attacks on the judiciary and praising of foreign dictators. These policies are largely responsible for the destruction of the Argentinian economy and the erosion of freedom in the last 20 years.
What explains these parallels in seemingly ideologically opposed leaders?
Trump and the Kirchners are not truly opposed. They attack freedom because they are nationalists. Note the core premise behind their policies: trade barriers and attacks on businesses effectively demand producers to sacrifice for a nationalist agenda—in defense of the Argentinian “homeland” or to “make America great again.”
It doesn’t matter if producers don’t make a profit or lose money. It doesn’t matter if consumers aren’t free to pursue their goals and to purchase the goods that they want (Trump recently said “[American kids might] have two dolls instead of 30 dolls,” admitting his policy requires consumers to sacrifice). What matters is pushing the alleged “greater good” of the nation, even when it requires sacrificing individual freedom on its altar
This is nationalism, a form of collectivism: the view that individuals (including businesses) are merely cogs in a machine and means to serve the nation, for which they must sacrifice. Individual freedoms and rights (to trade, to speak and dissent, to run one’s own business) don’t matter—what matters is fulfilling a nationalist, collectivistic goal decided by the leaders, and people matter only insofar they can contribute to that goal.
To nationalists, the problem isn’t that their policies are anti-freedom and cause untold harm to individuals—it’s the reporting on that fact because it harms their agenda. Enter censorship, intimidation of the media and meddling with statistics to make people think their ideas work and are moral.
America was founded on the opposite ideal to nationalism. American founders recognized individual freedom’s supremacy over any collective goal, established that government exists to serve the individual (not the other way around), and enshrined individual rights.
Many would cast the Kirchners as anti-freedom, and Trump as pro-freedom. But this is a false alternative. Their nationalistic ideology makes them both enemies of freedom.
Trump isn’t our first collectivist in power. But he should be the last. Americans should look at Argentina during the Kirchner government as a warning of what might come if we continue embracing nationalism and betray our founding principles.
Agustina Vergara Cid is a Young Voices Contributor and columnist for the Southern California News Group. You can follow her on X at @agustinavcid