President Javier Milei’s economic revolution represents more than a policy pivot; it’s a moral restoration of economic freedom in a country long suffocated by political patronage and false populism. For over half a century, Argentina sabotaged its own potential through destructive experiments in statism. Now, at last, a government in Buenos Aires is aligning economic reality with moral clarity: wealth is created by entrepreneurs, not bureaucrats. This return to first principles is rekindling optimism not only among Argentines but across a region desperate for proof that markets and democracy still deliver shared prosperity. One crucial reform remains for President Milei: fulfilling his campaign promise to replace the discredited peso with the U.S. dollar, which would slay the inflation dragon once and for all. Other Latin American nations have successfully done this. This weekend, President Milei will join President Donald Trump in Miami, where several Latin American leaders will discuss a renewed hemispheric push for pro-growth cooperation. The very fact that Argentina now sits at such a table signals how far it has come in restoring credibility. A nation once dismissed as ungovernable is suddenly at the center of regional attention, reminding the world that bold ideas grounded in free markets can reshape national destiny. The discussions will also test whether Argentina can sustain reform momentum amid political resistance at home. Shortly afterward, Milei’s administration will host “Argentina Week“ in New York, showcasing opportunities for American investment in energy, agriculture, and finance. The symbolism is powerful: Buenos Aires is stepping out of its long isolation and back into a world governed by trust and transparency. For many investors who had written off Argentina years ago, this gathering marks the ultimate test of Milei’s reforms under political and legal scrutiny that past regimes failed. Clear progress will bring capital home, along with the modern infrastructure, technology, and competition needed to reinvigorate Argentina’s middle class and stabilize its currency. Markets, however, are built on trust, not slogans. The outcome of the Petersen v. Republic of Argentina case — a $16 billion judgment tied to the Peronism-driven seizure of the energy company YPF — will test Argentina’s commitment to the rule of law. YPF’s nationalization back in 2012 was another failed experiment of Argentina’s Peronist past – one that resulted in major fallout for American investors. If the government honors that judgment and turns this costly dispute into a milestone of legal redemption, it would signal that the old habits of expropriation are truly over. Refusing to honor that decision would risk undermining the very revival Milei seeks. It would chill investment just as confidence begins to return and cast doubt on Argentina’s reliability as a trading and financial partner. Upholding accountability, by contrast, would not only calm financial markets but also energize entrepreneurs at home, eager to build without fear of arbitrary intervention. It would confirm to foreign investors that Argentina’s new age of reform is anchored in institutions, not personalities. The United States has already shown its faith in Argentina’s reform course. President Trump‘s $20 billion swap line was more than financial aid — it was a vote of confidence that free people and free markets can succeed where socialism failed. That confidence, however, will last only if Argentina maintains predictable legal and economic rules. Milei has shown rare determination by slashing spending, ending price controls, and dismantling the bureaucracies that choked private enterprise. But lasting success depends on consistency: clear rules, sound money (hence the need for dollarization), and dependable institutions. Property rights are the oxygen of capitalism. When governments confiscate, investment dies. When they keep their word, growth flourishes. The temptation to cut corners in the name of short-term relief always lurks nearby. But the only sustainable path forward is steady adherence to economic liberty and institutional reliability. The meetings in Miami and New York offer the ideal stage for Milei to affirm those values — and to show that Argentina’s new direction is not a passing wave but a permanent shift in national character. If Argentina stays this course — resolving old debts, deepening ties with the United States, and proving that freedom and responsibility are inseparable — it can once again become a beacon of prosperity in the Western Hemisphere. The world is watching, and this time Argentina has a real chance to prove that freedom works. * * * Steve Forbes is Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Here we go again. Minnesota’s elected officials have proven that the extreme progressives are in charge in the North Star State, beholden to the radical progressive activists who crawl out of every nook and cranny of the Twin Cities’s prestigious, white, liberal suburbs and exurbs. If you thought this was still the land of the milquetoast, “Minnesota Nice,” I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you. In the aftermath of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation that began last summer and ramped up as the White House began cracking down on widespread fraud, Minnesota has been ground zero for purity tests of the far-Left regime. Now, there’s a horse race for the Democrat Farmer Labor candidate for Minnesota’s Senate seat, after current Senator Tina Smith announced her retirement at the end of this term. The race to the Left — or the bottom, depending on which way the political winds are blowing — is between current Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Rep. Angie Craig. Both women flash their “girl power” bone fides at every chance, except when they’re appealing to the trans-affirmative activists who claim sex is a social construct, or to the abortion rights radicals who endanger women’s health and applaud the death of baby girls up to the moment of birth. The latest show of extreme views comes from Craig, who, in a commentary in The Minnesota Star Tribune, writes of her “regret” in voting for the Laken Riley Act, the first bill that President Donald Trump signed into law in his second term. It’s “become clear that supporting any bill that gives ICE new authority in this administration was the wrong decision,” Craig writes. She cites the act’s expansion of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 to include the detention without bail of noncitizen aliens while their immigration proceedings were pending to nonviolent offenders and provides for detaining aliens who are charged with or convicted of assaulting a law enforcement officer. Craig comes to her lament after standing “side by side with protesters on the streets of Minneapolis and opposite dozens of armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the Whipple Federal Building.” She makes no mention of the victims of these aliens’ crimes — crimes that put them on the ICE radar and, thanks to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, were free to live as “neighbors” instead of being detained by law enforcement in the local jails. How did her fellow DFL-er and political rival Peggy Flanagan respond? She pounced on it as an inexcusable failing in the moral purity test that the Minnesota extremist cabal uses as the standard operating procedure in politics. Flanagan posted on X a video clip of Craig voicing her support for the bill before her walk-back, adding, “Nothing can undo the damage that has been done.” Shots fired. “Minnesotans want common sense,” Michele Tafoya, a Republican seeking that seat, told The Daily Wire. “We want law and order. But we are run by far Left career politicians who put their own careers ahead of the safety of innocent, law-abiding Minnesotans. Some of them are crazy, some of them are cowards and some of them are both. It has to change.” “Angie Craig turning her back on the Laken Riley Act because her far Left base demands it is a craven act. Moderate Democrats have gone extinct in Minnesota,” she added. In Minnesota, we were offered a bait-and-switch with Walz, who, in statewide elections and in his miserable bid for vice president alongside Kamala Harris, was touted as an American Everyman action figure, complete with a vintage truck, Mountain Dew, and hunting accessories. But his record reveals extremist policies and disdain for the average fellas he was recruited to represent. Walz is one example of a new trend on the Left: Campaign as a moderate and, once elected, push hard-Left, radical policies. California Governor Gavin Newsom has appeared on various conservative platforms with a moderate tone. Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger’s State of the Union rebuttal last month displayed rank hypocrisy and a laughable attempt at “Moderate Dem” rebranding. Spanberger, who ran as a moderate, is now proposing sweeping, state-wide tax hikes, and criticizing immigration enforcement to the point of denying an ICE detainer for an illegal immigrant with over 30 arrests accused of stabbing a 41-year-old woman to death at a bus stop in Fairfax County. Even socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani leveraged the “affordability” buzzword and an inclusive demeanor to obfuscate sky-high tax policies and his anti-Jewish, anti-Israel history. We’ll continue to see this leftward march, purity tests, and hyperbolic rhetoric in support of these extreme measures — unhindered hormone and surgical procedures on minors for sex transitions, unlimited abortion, allowing males to compete against females in sports and opening bathrooms and locker rooms to all genders — and now siding with criminal aliens against law abiding citizens who truly want their neighborhoods safe rather than be battlegrounds for the latest Karen to proclaim her woke creds with an “ICE OUT” sign and safety whistle. What do you expect from a governor who publicly called ICE officers Nazis and compared them to the Gestapo? Rest in peace to the moderate Democrat who understood the errors of the Biden administration’s open border policy, who saw the damage of crime, rising welfare burdens, failed assimilation, and the deaths of innocent Americans at the hands of illegal aliens, and worked toward a common-sense solution — even (gasp!) voting with Republicans. In fact, high-profile wins like Mamdani’s and Spanberger’s have emboldened the progressive wing, raising the possibility of an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez presidential bid in 2028 over a moderate candidate. Bucking the far-Left puts politicians and civilians alike squarely in the fascist camp — just ask former Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips or Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman. If you’re a moderate, you’re owed any targeted violence, protest, or condemnation coming your way, even if it’s in a house of worship. How far Left are Democrats willing to go? If it’s a way to rile up the extremist base, keep the spotlight off the bottomless fraud scandals, and make the Trump administration Public Enemy Number One, the sky’s the limit. The extremists are at the wheel, and after flattening any moderates in their party, they’ve backed up the truck, ready for another round of hit-and-run. * * * Jenna Stocker is editor and publisher of American Experiment’s quarterly magazine. A former Marine Corps officer, Stocker also contributes to The Federalist and National Review. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

After one week of military action in Iran, directed by President Donald Trump and undertaken alongside Israel, the White House has released a series of hype videos designed to stir up pride and confidence in the United States military. While U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has released a number of videos showing American assets successfully striking specific targets, The White House took clips from those and spliced in pop culture references — everything from movie clips to professional sports plays — to drive the point home. Some of the hype videos just featured an added soundtrack dubbed over videos of American missiles striking Iranian targets. No pause. No hesitation.

U.S. President Donald Trump met executives from seven defense contractors on Friday, he announced in a social media post, as the Pentagon works to replenish supplies drawn down by U.S. strikes on Iran and other recent military operations. The meeting underscores the Trump administration’s drive to shore up weapons stocks after the Iran operation drew on munitions. “We just concluded a very good meeting with the largest U.S. Defense Manufacturing Companies where we discussed Production and Production Schedules,” Trump said in a social media post. Companies including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon parent RTX, BAE Systems, Boeing , Honeywell Aerospace, L3Harris and Northrop Grumman, attended the meeting, Trump said. Pentagon negotiators have not been able to reach terms with large defense contractors as quickly as they would like, a U.S. official told Reuters earlier this week. The administration has been steadily ratcheting up pressure on defense contractors to prioritize production over shareholder payouts. Trump signed an executive order in January to identify contractors deemed to be underperforming on contracts while distributing profits to shareholders. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and Israel’s military operations in Gaza, the U.S. has drawn down billions of dollars’ worth of weapons stockpiles, including artillery systems, ammunition and anti-tank missiles. In a sign of the preparations underway ahead of Friday’s gathering, Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg held a call with select defense contractors on Wednesday evening, a previously unreported development, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment. At the center of the talks are deals with large contractors like Lockheed Martin, two government sources and one industry executive said. In January the company reached a seven-year agreement with the Pentagon to increase annual production capacity for its PAC-3 missile interceptors to 2,000 units a year from about 600 previously. The company has announced it expects to quadruple production of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, missile interceptors to 400 per year from 96. In the social media post following Friday’s meeting Trump said the companies had agreed to quadruple production of precision-guided munitions – but clarified efforts to increase production began three months ago. Demand for air defense systems such as the PAC‑3 has surged among the United States and its allies amid heightened geopolitical tensions and the conflict in Iran. The White House meeting also may coincide with the release of a supplemental budget request of around $50 billion, which Reuters was first to report on Tuesday. The new money would pay for replacing weapons used in recent conflicts including those in the Middle East. The figure is preliminary and could change depending on the length of the operation. The supplemental request would come on top of an additional $150 billion in defense spending included in Republicans’ sweeping “one big beautiful bill.” (Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington; editing by Diane Craft)

U.S. Gulf Coast heavy grades continued to surge on Friday as the Iran conflict spurred several Middle Eastern producers of heavy crude to curtail production and drove buyers to scoop up U.S. barrels. Prices of Mars sour crude, the flagship crude produced in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and favored by refiners globally, traded at a $11 premium to U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude on Friday, brokers said. That was the highest since April 2020, and up $4 from Thursday. Just a week ago it traded at a premium of $1.50. Other heavy grades such as the Heavy Louisiana Sweet and the West Texas Sour also rose. Benchmark crude oil prices have surged since the initial attacks last week, with Brent crude settling at $92.69 a barrel, its highest level since October 2023 on Friday. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has forced several countries, including Iraq, to curb output. The strait is a key route for medium and heavy sour crude from the Persian Gulf, and those flows are now largely cut off. Additional production cuts announced in Kuwait on Friday also helped lift Mars prices, a trader said. “Refiners that rely on these grades will need to find similar, or roughly similar, alternatives to replace the lost barrels, so Mars and other U.S. Gulf sour heavies and mediums are natural substitutes and are getting bid up aggressively,” Kpler lead Americas oil analyst Matt Smith said, adding that buyers, especially in Asia, are scrambling for more of these medium and heavy crude barrels. “This time of year also marks the shift from winter into driving season, when demand typically rises across all crude grades,” said Tim Snyder, chief economist at Matador Economics, adding that ultimately the supply disruption caused by war was driving prices. “In the short term we will continue to see these grades rise until we see the Strait of Hormuz open up,” Snyder said. (Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in New York and Georgina McCartney in Houston; Editing by David Gregorio)