FAR-RIGHT economist Javier Milei took over as Argentina’s president today.

Mr Milei scored a convincing presidential run-off victory on November 19 over the centrist Peronist party economy minister Sergio Massa.

Argentina is in deep economic turmoil as it endures triple-digit inflation, a plunging economy and has a quarter of the population living in deep poverty.

The solution put forward by Mr Milei, a self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist, is to purge the political establishment of corruption, eliminate the Central Bank, which he has accused of printing money and fuelling inflation, and to replace the rapidly depreciating Argentine peso with the US dollar.

But after winning, he chose Luis Caputo, a former Central Bank president, to be his economy minister and one of Mr Caputo’s allies to run the bank.

Mr Milei openly admires Donald Trump but during a visit to the US last week he didn’t meet the former president, instead having lunch with another former US leader, Bill Clinton.

He also dispatched a diplomat with a long history of work in climate negotiations to the Cop28 conference in Dubai, despite having often denied humanity’s involvement in global warming. 

And he has reportedly backtracked on plans to scrap the nation’s health ministry.

Mr Milei chose Patricia Bullrich, a long-time politician and first-round adversary from the coalition with the second most seats, to be his security minister, as well as her running mate, Luis Petri, as his defence minister.

Prominent far-right figures are expected to be present at the inauguration including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the head of Spain’s Vox party Santiago Abascal, and former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.

Mr Milei reportedly sent a letter inviting Brazil’s current president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, after calling the leftist “obviously” corrupt last month during a televised interview and asserting that, if he became president, the two would not meet.