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 Welcome to Balance of Power, bringing you the latest in global politics. If you haven’t yet, sign up here. Javier Milei faces a political reckoning this weekend. Voters in Argentina will decide almost half the seats in Congress in midterm elections that have taken on outsized meaning. Beyond his low-profile candidates, the president’s libertarian agenda, harsh austerity and a potential $40 billion bailout from Donald Trump are also effectively on Sunday’s ballot.  Milei sings at presentation of his book La Construccion del Milagro in Buenos Aires. Photographer: Tomas Cuesta/Getty Images The US came to the rescue in late September after voters in the province of Buenos Aires — where a third of the country lives — turned the chainsaw on Milei, delivering a gutting defeat in a local election that the president himself had cast as a bellwether for the national race. The Trump administration has since pulled out all the stops to shore up an ideological ally, buying pesos, signing a $20 billion deal and offering another lifeline from Wall Street banks. Trump raised the stakes when Milei visited Washington. “If he wins, we’re staying with him,” Trump said. “And if he doesn’t win, we’re gone.” Argentine leaders love spending Washington’s dollars — the IMF learned this 23 times — but politically Trump’s remarks risk turning away those weary of another American-backed rescue, and the hidden conditions neither side is detailing. Milei’s real problem is likely beyond Trump’s control: Disillusioned swing voters worn down by an economy losing momentum, austerity that’s quadrupled utility bills and, to top it off, three corruption scandals this year eroding Milei’s outsider, drain-the-swamp image. To his credit, Milei inherited a full-blown crisis and brought Argentina back from the brink, crushing inflation from almost 300% to 32%. Poverty is down to the lowest since 2018. Yet his disapproval rating is at the highest level of his presidency. Milei seems to notice the economic pain he’s inflicted: His trademark chainsaw, symbol of his tear-it-up style, has been nowhere to be seen on the campaign trail. — Patrick Gillespie  A Milei supporter wields a chainsaw during a rally in Cordoba, Argentina, in 2023. Photographer: Tomas Cuesta/Getty Images Global Must ReadsTrump is aiming for a quick win in a pivotal meeting next week with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, even if the outcome falls short of a sweeping deal he’s seeking. French President Emmanuel Macron told European Union leaders to consider using the bloc’s most powerful trade tool against China if they aren’t able to find a resolution to Beijing’s planned export controls on critical raw materials.  WATCH: Trump and Xi meeting: What’s at stake? Trump said he would immediately halt all trade talks with Canada, citing a Canadian advertisement against his signature tariffs plan that featured the voice of former US President Ronald Reagan. He argued the ad was timed to interfere with a looming Supreme Court case challenging the legality of much of his foreign economic policy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he won’t recognize any territorial swaps during potential peace negotiations with Russia, as EU leaders put off to December a decision on whether to tap frozen Russian central bank assets to provide Kyiv with funds. Lithuania reported that two Russian fighter planes made an 18-second incursion into its airspace yesterday, prompting NATO to scramble jets to intercept them. China sacked nine senior military officials from the ruling Communist party on Oct. 17 in a high-profile purge that removed several commanders and a member of the 24-man Politburo. Meanwhile, Xi’s biggest political meeting of the year featured rows of empty seats, with just 168 of the 205 Central Committee members turning up at the party’s fourth plenum this week, the lowest attendance rate for such a session since the chaotic years of the Cultural Revolution by our tally. The Trump administration is opening the entire coastal plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leasing, reversing a Biden administration decision that put the pristine wilderness area off limits.  The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Photographer: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post/Getty Images A Turkish court dropped a case that could topple the leader of the country’s main opposition party, offering temporary relief to investors concerned about renewed political instability. Ivory Coast’s leader, Alassane Ouattara, appears assured of winning a fourth term in tomorrow’s elections, a contest dismissed as a farce by his main rivals who’ve been barred from running. Plaid Cymru won a special election for the Welsh Parliament, delivering a blow to the UK’s governing Labour Party, which had never before lost in the Caerphilly seat. Don’t miss from Bloomberg Weekend: David Marsh argues that Europe hasn’t recovered from the fall of the Berlin Wall and Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage says on the Mishal Husain Show that Britain has had “too many unifiers.” Subscribe to the Bloomberg Weekend newsletter here.  The opening up of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, prompted mass celebrations. Photographer: Peter Zimmermann/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo Sign up for the Washington Edition newsletter for news from the US capital and watch Balance of Power at 1 and 5 p.m. ET weekdays on Bloomberg Television. Chart of the Day Saudi Arabia is pivoting away from its $500 billion new city of Neom, what would have been one of the world’s biggest construction projects. Instead, it’s preparing to pour billions more into areas like artificial intelligence, gaming and high-tech manufacturing as it races to diversify its oil-reliant economy, sources say. New contracts for Neom are drying up and the project received no mention in the kingdom’s pre-budget statement for 2026 after being featured for three straight years. And FinallyNana Regional Corp. is an Alaska Native company based in Kotzebue, a coastal town of about 3,000 just north of the Arctic Circle, and has outsize importance to the Iñupiat people. Its stated mission is to improve quality of life for the Iñupiat while honoring principles including treating people with “dignity and respect.” Over time, Nana has turned itself into a government contractor, working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That’s given it a growing role in the Trump administration’s mass ICE-led deportation drive, leading to charges that Nana is abandoning core Iñupiat values.  Kotzebue on a late-summer day. Photographer: Ash Adams/Bloomberg Businessweek Pop quiz (no cheating!). Which nation’s president did Trump label as an “illegal drug leader?” Send your answers to balancepower@bloomberg.net More from Bloomberg
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