--- description: Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri is one of the most influential people of 2018, says the Council of Foreign Relations' Richard Haass. title: Mauricio Macri Is on the 2018 TIME 100 List image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc48bcc9bfb30df47/69892d9186f68e2b076e8df9/time-100-mauricio-macri.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 19, 2018 # Mauricio Macri by Richard Haass  Argentina's President Mauricio Macri leaves after announcing a drop of the poverty to 25,7 percent as he speaks to the press at the presidential residence in Olivos, Buenos Aires, on March 28, 2018\. Poverty reached 25.7% of the population in Argentina in the second half of 2017, an index lower than the 28.6% of the first semester, according to the state Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec). / AFP PHOTO / Juan MABROMATA (Photo credit should read JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images) Argentina's President Mauricio Macri leaves after announcing a drop of the poverty to 25,7 percent as he speaks to the press at the presidential residence in Olivos, Buenos Aires, on March 28, 2018\. Poverty reached 25.7% of the population in Argentina in the second half of 2017, an index lower than the 28.6% of the first semester, according to the state Institute of Statistics and Censuses (Indec). / AFP PHOTO / Juan MABROMATA (Photo credit should read JUAN MABROMATA/AFP/Getty Images)Juan Mabromata—AFP/Getty Images For Mauricio Macri, just finishing his first term in office as Argentina’s President would be an achievement. No elected President who is not a Peronist, the country’s dominant political movement since the 1940s, has managed to last a full four years. But Macri, the center-right President elected in 2015, seems well on his way to breaking that record. His reformist _Cambiemos_ (Let’s Change) coalition won a resounding victory in October’s midterm elections. Macri is bucking populist trends—maybe because the people of Argentina were ruled by populists for decades and are ready for someone who is a committed democrat, competent and not corrupt. Macri is a political hybrid: pro-business but sensitive to popular concerns. New bus lanes have dramatically cut commute times. Inflation is high but coming down, economic growth is around 2.9% and projected to climb, and Argentina has returned to global credit markets after 15 years. At the same time, more reform is required to attract investment, expand trade, reduce subsidies and strengthen the rule of law. Still, Macri is off to a good start and shows no signs of having peaked. _Haass is the president of the Council on Foreign Relations_ See TIME's \[p-link http://time.com/time100 "full list"\] of the 100 Most Influential People of 2018 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/most-influential-people-2018/5238110/mauricio-macri-2/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/most-influential-people-2018/5238110/mauricio-macri-2/"},"headline":"Mauricio Macri","datePublished":"2018-04-19T11:13:53.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:21:59.225Z","description":"Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri is one of the most influential people of 2018, says the Council of Foreign Relations' Richard Haass.","url":"https://time.com/collections/most-influential-people-2018/5238110/mauricio-macri-2/","keywords":["TIME 100","2018 Time 100"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc48bcc9bfb30df47/69892d9186f68e2b076e8df9/time-100-mauricio-macri.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc48bcc9bfb30df47/69892d9186f68e2b076e8df9/time-100-mauricio-macri.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/most-influential-people-2018/5238110/mauricio-macri-2/","name":"Mauricio Macri"}}]}] ```