Javier Milei has introduced a sweeping economic reform agenda in Argentina, emphasizing the privatization of state-owned companies, the reduction of state subsidies, and the elimination of the central bank, with the aim of replacing the peso with the US dollar to align with libertarian principles of minimal government intervention and free-market policies.

His omnibus bill consolidates these neoliberal initiatives, granting extraordinary powers to the executive branch to expedite deregulation and privatization, reflecting a strong libertarian emphasis on reducing state control and fostering individual economic freedom.

Milei’s economic strategy includes incentivizing foreign investment through tax breaks and deregulation, aiming to attract capital and stimulate growth in line with market-driven development principles.

To address Argentina’s fiscal deficit, Milei has implemented deep cuts to public spending, including a 75% reduction in state transfers to regional governments, halting 90% of public works, and downsizing ministries, resulting in the country’s first fiscal surplus since 2008.

In tackling Argentina’s inflation crisis, Milei has pursued monetary reforms such as devaluing the peso and proposing dollarization, while eliminating money-printing practices, though these measures have led to short-term inflation spikes, with inflation exceeding 200% in 2023.

Milei’s approach to the debt crisis includes securing support from the International Monetary Fund, which has unlocked $4.7 billion in funds, while his austerity measures aim to stabilize the economy and prevent default, despite concerns over hyperinflation and social backlash.

His reforms extend to deregulating labor laws, removing restrictions on rental markets, and privatizing state-owned enterprises, alongside significant cuts to subsidies in the energy and transportation sectors.

In the housing sector, tenant protections have been abolished, while in labor markets, probation periods for new employees have been extended and dismissal compensation laws amended to favor employers.

Milei has dissolved several ministries, including the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity, consolidating others to streamline government operations and reduce public spending.

In the energy sector, Milei initially proposed privatizing YPF, Argentina’s state-owned oil company, but later backtracked due to political opposition, while continuing to encourage private sector investment in renewables and other energy resources.

Healthcare reforms under Milei include deregulating union-provided health care, allowing employees to opt out, which has sparked protests from labor unions concerned about the erosion of worker protections and increased social inequality.

A central element of Milei’s monetary policy is dollarization, aimed at replacing the Argentine peso with the US dollar to combat hyperinflation, though critics warn this could deplete reserves and increase vulnerability to external shocks tied to US monetary policy.

Milei has also proposed eliminating the Argentine Central Bank, arguing that its existence has historically fueled inflation and monetary instability, and views its removal as essential to achieving financial stability.

While comparisons to successful dollarization cases like Ecuador and Zimbabwe have been drawn, experts caution that Argentina’s lack of sufficient dollar reserves and complex economic challenges could hinder the feasibility of such a transition.

Politically, Milei has positioned himself as an outsider challenging Argentina’s traditional party structures, particularly the dominance of Peronism and the two-party system, appealing to disillusioned voters seeking alternatives to the status quo.

His governance model has raised concerns about democratic norms, as he frequently bypasses legislative scrutiny through emergency decrees and omnibus bills, concentrating power in the executive branch to expedite neoliberal reforms.

Milei’s rhetoric and policies, such as the abolition of the central bank and privatization of state assets, reflect a radical libertarian ideology that prioritizes market-driven solutions over institutional norms, further challenging traditional governance frameworks.

Institutional reforms under Milei include abolishing ten of Argentina’s eighteen ministries and merging others into streamlined entities, such as the Ministry of Human Capital, to cut public spending and centralize administrative functions.

He has leveraged emergency decrees to repeal over 300 laws and regulations, facilitating privatization and deregulation, which critics argue undermines democratic norms and institutional checks.

Milei’s reforms aim to reshape Argentina’s political system by promoting a libertarian vision that frames the state as an obstacle to economic growth and societal prosperity.

Social welfare programs have been significantly impacted, with measures such as the termination of government food packages to community kitchens, exacerbating food insecurity among vulnerable populations.

The dissolution of the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity and the end of support programs for victims of gender violence have raised concerns about increased gender inequality and reduced protections for marginalized groups.

Austerity measures, including subsidy cuts and deregulation, have contributed to rising unemployment and poverty, with child poverty projected to reach 70% in early 2024.

Milei’s foreign policy emphasizes free-market principles and rejects partnerships with socialist regimes, as seen in his refusal to engage with China and Brazil on governmental agreements despite their status as Argentina’s largest trading partners.

He has prioritized alignment with the United States and Israel, signaling a shift towards the 'American-Israeli axis' and planning to move Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem.

Milei’s outreach to the IMF and U.S. officials reflects his strategy of leveraging neoliberal principles to attract international support for Argentina’s economic reforms.

Public opinion in Argentina has become sharply divided, with supporters viewing Milei’s libertarian reforms as a path to economic revival and detractors criticizing them as authoritarian and destabilizing.

Mass protests have erupted in response to austerity measures, including subsidy cuts and privatization plans, with critics accusing the government of exacerbating economic inequality.

Milei has defended his reforms as necessary to address Argentina’s economic crisis, framing his actions as efforts to dismantle interventionist policies and restore individual freedoms.

His policies represent a sharp departure from previous administrations, particularly the Peronist governments, as he seeks to dismantle state intervention and implement libertarian measures to address economic instability.

Unlike his predecessors, Milei has faced immediate resistance from labor unions and entrenched political factions, with protests highlighting the polarization and challenges in implementing his radical agenda.

Milei’s market-oriented strategies, including dollarization and drastic fiscal adjustments, aim to stabilize the economy but risk exacerbating poverty and inequality in the short term.

The long-term effects of his policies may include institutional challenges, as his reliance on emergency decrees risks undermining democratic norms and creating political instability.

Milei’s reforms have reshaped the relationship between Argentina’s federal government and provincial authorities, significantly reducing state transfers and consolidating ministries, which has strained provincial budgets and sparked protests.

Provincial governments have declared economic emergencies and implemented contingency plans in response to reduced federal support, highlighting the broader impact of Milei’s neoliberal restructuring on local economies.

Milei’s dramatic rhetoric and symbolic gestures, such as wielding a chainsaw at rallies, have been instrumental in galvanizing public support for his libertarian agenda.

He has strategically used mass media and social platforms to amplify his anti-establishment messaging, resonating with a populace disillusioned by decades of economic mismanagement and political corruption.

Milei’s labor market reforms, including deregulating labor laws and reducing worker protections, have sparked widespread protests and union strikes against perceived threats to labor rights.

The austerity measures and privatization plans have led to increased unemployment, with over 50,000 jobs lost due to government cuts and layoffs.

Milei’s governance approach, characterized by the use of emergency decrees, has concentrated legislative powers in the executive branch, raising concerns about the erosion of democratic processes.

His administration has faced accusations of authoritarian tendencies, with threats to govern by plebiscite if Congress resists his agenda, further fueling fears of undermining democratic accountability.

Milei’s policies have reshaped Argentina’s international reputation, aligning the country more closely with Western alliances while distancing it from China and Brazil.

Historical precedents for Milei’s policies include Argentina’s Convertibility Plan in the 1990s, which reduced inflation but also increased unemployment and social stratification, highlighting the risks of similar measures today.

Business leaders have shown cautious support for Milei’s economic reforms, particularly his reduction of government ministries and subsidies, as these align with market-oriented strategies.

Javier Milei has introduced a sweeping economic reform agenda in Argentina, emphasizing the privatization of state-owned companies, the reduction of state subsidies, and the elimination of the central bank, with the aim of replacing the peso with the US dollar to align with libertarian principles of minimal government intervention and free-market policies.

Title:

Content: Argentina’s Javier Milei’s “Instant Democracy” and Neoliberalism

Javier Milei, YouTube screen grab.

Self-described “anarcho-capitalist,” Javier Milei became the president of Argentina in December 2023 promising “drastic” measures to temper the inflation crisis that has gripped the country. In the weeks since his election, Milei has brought forward an ambitious neoliberal restructuring program encompassing almost every aspect of the government.

Milei’s agenda confronts considerable opposition in Congress, where his governing coalition, Libertad Avanza, holds only a fraction of the seats. To adjust to these circumstances, Milei has cultivated a strategy of “turbo-politics,” bypassing legislative processes that risk delaying the implementation of his state reorganization plans.

Milei’s approach to Congress is symbolic of a decades-old strategy I have elsewhere called “neoliberal parliamentarism.” This concept describes a pattern of deliberate efforts to reform or subvert legislative institutions as a means of facilitating neoliberal reforms that do not have sufficient popular support to be actualized through usual democratic channels. These changes, even when temporary, often leave long-term scars on institutions by weakening norms of institutional forbearance.

The Emergency Decree and the Omnibus Bill

Milei has followed this blueprint, insulating the core elements of his agenda from democratic influence. The dismantling of the Argentine state began in earnest in mid-December when the executive branch presented an 83 page Necessity and Urgency Decree (NDU) aimed at repealing over 300 various laws and regulations, facilitating the privatization of core public assets.

This “mega-decree,” Milei claimed, was necessary to “start to undo the huge number of regulations that have held back and prevented economic growth”. It includes sweeping economic deregulation, such as the elimination of regulations on Argentina’s supermarket laws, which required the guarantee of low prices on basic products. It also includes measures to eliminate rent controls. Suggested labour reforms to cut pregnancy leave and increase the job probation period were suspended by the courts in January 2024.

Less than a week after issuing the NDU, the executive branch sent a massive omnibus bill titled Foundations and Starting Points for the Freedom of the Argentine People to Congress for consideration. The bill bundles the major elements of Milei’s neoliberal restructuring initiatives under the heading of a single piece of legislation with 664 articles. It will enable the government to carry out, in a matter of weeks, what would normally take years to achieve if these reforms were considered independently and subjected to the usual legislative scrutiny.

Reforms from the 351 page bill include an extraordinary provision declaring a state of public emergency on matters related to the economy, fiscal balance, social security, defence, health, and administration.

The emergency declaration delegates more than 1,000 extraordinary powers from the legislative to the executive until December 31, 2025, with the possibility of a two-year extension. This provision would enable Milei to make major reforms without having to consult Congress, thus eliminating a major hurdle to the implementation of neoliberal reforms.

Authors of the bill are attempting to facilitate the privatization of 41 state-owned companies across various sectors including energy, aviation, port administration, and agriculture. They also enable the reorganization of public administration, including embedding regulatory cuts from the NDU into law.

Additionally, the omnibus legislation proposes substantial reforms to environmental protection laws. These changes include the weakening of the Glacier Protection Law, allowing the mining of sensitive “periglacial” areas. The bill is presently being rushed through the legislative process by way of Extraordinary sessions of Congress, leading to marathon sittings during Argentina’s usual summer recess period.

“It’s impossible for people to have an idea of the enormous number of proposals Milei has sent,” said Ricardo Gil Laverda, a constitutional lawyer and former Argentine Justice Minister. “They cover dozens and dozens and dozens of laws, often on deep topics.”

To influence negotiations, Milei has threatened to put forward a non-binding referendum if the opposition parties do not agree to the main terms of his restructuring plan. Milei has also threatened to take away social welfare rights from protesters who block streets.

Despite these efforts, however, the reality of Milei’s lack of Congressional support has led him to compromise on some elements of his agenda as it makes its way through the legislative process. Although the structure of the bill remains, opposition politicians have made more than 100 changes to it, including curtailing the scope of the President’s emergency powers to one year rather than two, and retaining YPF, the national oil and gas company, in public hands, despite allowing most other state-owned companies to remain subject to privatization.

Neoliberalism and the Decline of the Legislature

Argentina is not unique. This most recent example of legislative subversion is a familiar tactic used to accommodate neoliberal restructuring, that has been utilized repeatedly by neoliberal reformers in recent decades, including the IMF-sanctioned omnibus bill rammed through Greece’s parliament in 2014.

This approach to the legislature is the consequence of the political limitations of neoliberal policy, which is opposed by considerable segments of society. A blueprint for this strategy is spelled out by former New Zealand Minister of Finance Roger Douglas in his 1993 book, Unfinished Business. The book recalls lessons from his experience implementing a neoliberal agenda dubbed ‘Rogernomics’ in the 1980s against the headwinds of widespread social and political opposition.

Douglas claimed it is “uncertainty, not speed, that endangers the success of structural reform programmes.” Neoliberal reforms should not be passed incrementally, but as a rupture, moving in “quantum leaps” to overcome popular opposition.

Democratic processes are typically slow and deliberate, designed to enable the legislative body to scrutinize the executive, foster compromise, and encourage debate. It was necessary, therefore, to streamline the democratic process to ensure that politicians could neither interfere with, nor demand meaningful changes to, neoliberal reorganization efforts.

Neoliberal governments should confront the legislature, not as an essential element of the process of democracy, but an instrument used by politicians and vested interests to interfere with the operations of the marketplace. “Speed is essential. It is almost impossible to go too fast,” Douglas said. “Once the programme begins to be implemented, don’t stop until you have completed it.”

This tactic did not occur in a vacuum, but emerged intrinsically from the content of a neoliberal theoretical framework that views democratic institutions as an additional layer of state administration to be overcome. Neoliberal thought is deeply skeptical in the capabilities of reason to infer or predict causality. Given the limitations of the mind, society should be governed, not by conscious modelling and careful planning, but according to spontaneous or “invisible hand” forms of social organization, which are the outcome of independent, unplanned individual decisions.

This position is most clearly expressed by Friedrich Hayek, who claimed that parliamentary sovereignty was in fact the “root of the evil” in modern society, since it facilitated the growth of the state. Legislatures constituted one limb of what Milton Friedman called the “iron triangle” of politicians, bureaucrats, as well as corporate and individual special interests that were perpetually reliant upon the government for rents, and therefore had an interest in obstructing market reforms.

‘Instant Democracy’ and the Rise of ‘Neoliberal Populism’

What should we make of Milei’s approach to Congress, then? Is it reflective of a new pattern in neoliberal governance, or merely the extension of an old one? The answer is both. While Milei’s approach clearly shares categorial similarities with the neoliberal legislative blueprint built for speed, his blending of these ideas with a coarse, populist rhetoric grounded in anti-statism, signifies an intensification of these patterns.

Milei’s populist neoliberal worldview contributes to a rising trend among far-right governments around the world to use this rhetoric to rationalize the subversion of democracy. This kind of “neoliberal populism” conflates democratic institutions with political actors, claiming that they are instruments of obstruction for self-serving politicians and bureaucrats.

This is a view Milei has proudly declared. “For me, the state is an enemy, as are the politicians who live off it,” he said. “We will put an end to the parasitic, stupid, useless political caste that is sinking this country.”

Grounded in the same logic as neoliberalism’s conventional demand for freedom from the state, democratic institutions increasingly appear as impediments to the logic of the marketplace. The elimination of cumbersome legislative processes, then, removes the obstacles that restrain market forces, generating popular economic independence, and restoring common-sense. This inverts the logic of democracy, making it appear as though executive rule is necessary to protect the interests of “the People” from Friedman’s “iron triangle.”

The anti-parliamentarism at the core of the neoliberal theoretical outlook has increasingly transformed into a populist program that mobilizes a general dissatisfaction with politicians against democratic institutions as such. Neoliberal politicians, such as Milei, use this reasoning to manufacture the conditions for the ongoing use of emergency powers and the concentration of authority in the executive branch.

The global elite, sensing “the smell of a big privatization wave coming,” are said to be “infatuated” with his take-no-prisoners approach to Congress. Thus, although not a new phenomenon, Milei’s brand of “instant democracy,” which conceives of speed and flexibility as the essence of legislative governance, has the support of both the financial elite as well as a growing populist dimension, giving it the hallmarks of a burgeoning political movement of the most regressive kind.

As the institutional forbearance that restrained most neoliberal governments to stay within the confines of liberal democratic constitutional structures continues to give way to a logic that sees the legislature as subordinate to the market, it is likely that we will continue to see the erosion of democratic standards.

Tom McDowell is a Lecturer in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Toronto Metropolitan University. He is the author of Neoliberal Parliamentarism: The Decline of Parliament at the Ontario Legislature (University of Toronto Press, 2021).

dollarizing the Argentinian currency
closing the central bank

His omnibus bill consolidates these neoliberal initiatives, granting extraordinary powers to the executive branch to expedite deregulation and privatization, reflecting a strong libertarian emphasis on reducing state control and fostering individual economic freedom.

Title:

Content: 'No obstacle' to Argentina mega reform bill in Congress, government says

By Walter Bianchi

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina's government said on Tuesday that it was confident its sprawling economic reform bill, known as the "omnibus bill", would gain approval in Congress after it made concessions removing some divisive sections from the legislation.

The bill is a central plank in libertarian President Javier Milei's aims to overhaul the South American country's economy that is buckling under high debt loads, inflation running at over 200% and myriad capital controls to protect the peso.

"There should now be no obstacle for the law to be approved," presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said in a daily press conference on Tuesday. "As we understand it is going to get approved, with the first half of that this week."

Milei took office in December after a divisive campaign in which he pledged a "chainsaw" plan to slash back the size of the state and cut spending with an austerity drive he argues is necessary to put the country's finances back on a firm footing.

That has gone down well with markets and investors, including major creditor the International Monetary Fund (IMF), though he has warned of tough months ahead for regular Argentines with a likely economic contraction this year.

The omnibus bill - a major part of Milei's reform plan - is expected to be debated in the lower house of Congress on Wednesday after the government yanked the key fiscal section following opposition to tax hikes and pension reforms.

While marking a significant concession by the government -- which still intends to push those fiscal plans separately -- the move was seen as likely to help avoid the bill failing in Congress where Milei only has minority support.

That helped the S&P Merval stock index edge up 1% on Tuesday, with sovereign bonds very slightly up on average.

The government still faces a major challenge to meet pledges for a zero deficit this year, while turning around an expected economic contraction estimated by the IMF at 2.8%.

"As soon as reality and the situation allows it, of course we are going to reverse this drop," Adorni added.

In popular parallel currency markets, used to get around strict capital controls and where people pay a large premium for dollars, the exchange rate was over 1,200 pesos per dollar on Tuesday, well away from the 826 peso controlled official rate.

In futures markets dollars were trading at 1,273 pesos by the end of June, reflecting expectations of a sharp slide.

(Reporting by Walter Bianchi; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Alison Williams)

Advertisement

How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

What does Milei promote in terms of healthcare and education?

Milei’s economic strategy includes incentivizing foreign investment through tax breaks and deregulation, aiming to attract capital and stimulate growth in line with market-driven development principles.

Title:

Content: Skip to Content

In initial victory for Argentine President Milei, Senate gives overall approval to key reform bills

By ISABEL DEBRE
Associated Press

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina’s Senate has approved key state overhaul and tax bills proposed by President Javier Miliei, delivering an initial legislative victory to the libertarian leader in his efforts to deliver on his promises of radical change.

Senators voted 37 to 36 late Wednesday to give their overall approval to the overhaul bill after 11 hours of heated debate as protesters urging lawmakers to reject Milei’s harsh austerity clashed with police outside Congress. The lawmakers still must approve individual measures in an article-by-article vote that will stretch throughout the night.

In a reflection of the fierce backlash to the legislation and deep polarization gripping Argentina’s Congress, Vice President and head of the Senate Victoria Villarruel cast the tiebreaking vote in favor of Milei’s agenda.

The legislation delegates broad powers to the president in energy, pensions, security and other areas and includes several measures seen as controversial, including a generous incentive scheme for foreign investors, tax amnesty for those with undeclared assets and plans to privatize some of Argentina’s state-owned firms.

If the Senate approves the articles with modifications, the lower house still has to okay them before Milei can claim passing his first law since entering office last December.

As Senators pored over the bills, protesters in downtown Buenos Aires hurled sticks, stones and Molotov cocktails at police who fired water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowds.

The fiery right-wing economist rose to power on promises he would resolve Argentina’s worst economic crisis in two decades, with annual inflation climbing toward 300% and a recession deepening.

But his political party of relative novices holds just a tiny minority of seats in Congress and he has struggled to strike deals with the opposition.

Senators approved two bills, a tax package that lowers the income tax threshold and a 238-article state reform bill that passed the lower house of Congress in late April after weeks of negotiations.

Initially dubbed the “omnibus bill” because of its more than 600 articles, the watered-down version at hand still delegates broad legislative powers to the president in energy, pensions, security and other areas.

The proposal’s immense scope — and staunch opposition to it — has limited progress.

“We have the weakest president we’ve ever seen who is trying to pass the biggest bill we’ve ever seen,” said Ana Iparraguirre, an Argentina-based analyst at Washington strategy firm GBAO. “That’s the contradiction.”

Unlike previous Argentine leaders since the return of democracy in 1983, Milei has failed to pass a single piece of legislation during his first six months in office. Instead, the populist outsider has relied on executive powers to slash state spending and sweep away economic restrictions.

“Today, it’s almost more important for Milei to demonstrate that he can pass laws in Congress than what he passes,” said Lucas Romero, director of Synopsis consultancy.

The package has faced tough resistance from the left-leaning Peronist movement loyal to former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, which has dominated Argentine politics for the last two decades and holds sway over the country’s powerful trade unions.

Thousands of bankers, teachers, truckers and workers from a range of other unions converged around Congress throughout the day, banging drums, blasting trumpets and chanting, “Our country is not for sale!” and “We will defend the state!”

“If this law passes, we are going to lose so many of our labor and pension rights,” said 54-year-old teacher Miriam Rajovitcher protesting alongside her colleagues, middle-class Argentines who say they’ve had to reconfigure their lives since Milei slashed their school budgets and devalued the currency, sending inflation soaring. “I am so much wor0se off.

The rally took a tense turn when hundreds of riot officers pushed back with their shields against angry protesters trying to surge through a barrier.

Police used pepper spray, water cannons and tear gas against the huge crowds while demonstrators set two overturned cars ablaze and threw Molotov cocktails.

Dozens of protesters were being treated by medics in the streets and police said 20 officers had been injured in the clashes. At least five Peronist lawmakers said they were hospitalized after police sprayed pepper spray in their eyes.

“Today the government is declaring war on the Argentine people,” Peronist lawmaker Cecilia Moreau told reporters outside Congress.

The presidency called protesters “terrorists” and accused them of “attempting to carry out a coup d’état” by disrupting Congress.

The Peronist bloc controls 33 out of 72 seats in the Senate while Milei’s party, Freedom Advances, holds just seven seats. The bill needed 37 votes from the 72 total legislators in the Senate to get a majority and ended up with a 36-36 tie.

Analysts say that foreign investors and the International Monetary Fund, to which Argentina owes a staggering $44 billion, are closely watching Wednesday’s vote to see whether Milei can build consensus with his opponents to deliver on his ambitions.

Wednesday’s article-by-article vote will stretch for hours, with analysts expecting lawmakers to further weaken the most divisive sections of the bills.

One of the most contested measures is an incentive program to spur foreign investments that offers lucrative tax breaks for 30 years, no import tariffs and other perks for big corporations that critics say go too far.

“What this law is hurting most are the pockets of workers, not the big companies that are just going to get richer,” said 36-year-old Juan Barreto, a bank employee jostling amid crowds of his fellow union members.

Argentina’s unions have also voiced vehement opposition to measures that would make it easier for companies to fire employees as well as plans to privatize some state-owned companies. The question of which ones will head to auction has generated intense debate.

Backlash to the tax bill has centered on an amnesty that would allow Argentines to register undeclared assets at home and abroad without paying heavy taxes, as well as a lower income tax threshold to boost revenue.

Frustrated by legislative resistance, the president has moderated his previous all-or-nothing approach. Earlier this month, in a bid to break the impasse, Milei fired his politically inexperienced Cabinet chief and replaced him with Interior Minister Guillermo Francos, a career politician skilled at congressional wheeling and dealing.

In recent weeks, Argentina has gotten a taste of what awaits if Congress fails to pass the bills.

Sovereign bonds have tumbled. The country’s currency, the peso, has depreciated as well, widening the gap between the official and black market exchange rate to nearly 40%. The peso was trading at 1,255 per greenback on the informal market Wednesday, a rate far lower than earlier this year.

Even as the IMF has praised Milei’s agenda and released tranches of frozen loans, the fund has held back from striking a new deal with Argentina.

Meanwhile, Milei has been in Silicon Valley rubbing shoulders with billionaire tech executives Elon Musk, Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg. The meetings however, have not produced any announcements of substantial investments.

“What you’re seeing in the last three weeks is the market and investors getting a little nervous,” said Marcelo J. García, Americas director at geopolitical risk firm Horizon Engage. “The market is saying, ‘Show me that you can govern.’”

Article Topic Follows: News

Jump to comments ↓

Associated Press

BE PART OF THE CONVERSATION

News Channel 3 is committed to providing a forum for civil and constructive conversation.

Please keep your comments respectful and relevant. You can review our Community Guidelines by clicking here

If you would like to share a story idea, please submit it here.

Skip to content

To address Argentina’s fiscal deficit, Milei has implemented deep cuts to public spending, including a 75% reduction in state transfers to regional governments, halting 90% of public works, and downsizing ministries, resulting in the country’s first fiscal surplus since 2008.

Title:

Content: Argentine government announces first quarterly surplus since 2008

Javier Milei celebrated the accomplishment, which achieved via a substantial reduction in government spending, including reductions in public works and redistribution to regional governments.

The Argentine government, led by President Javier Milei, announced Monday that it closed the first quarter with a fiscal surplus for the first time since 2008.

Milei broke the news on national television with marked joy. This fiscal surplus of 0.2% of GDP occurs after the first three months under the Libertarian president and his "chainsaw" method against public spending. Since coming to power, as he promised during the campaign, Milei has carried out a policy of heavy cuts to state infrastructure.

“This economic miracle of achieving a quarterly financial surplus after almost 20 years, having inherited the situation that we did, responds to what those who want the failure of this government usually say, to an enormous extent to what we called a 'chainsaw' during the campaign, and not as some say to the liquefaction of public funds, a method that has historically been used in our country," celebrated Milei from the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires, the president's official residence. “The fiscal surplus is the cornerstone from which we will build Argentina's new era of prosperity,” he added, standing alongside several members of his government.

The fiscal surplus of 0.2% for Argentina represents about $300,000. The accomplishment comes after cuts of almost 75% of state transfers to regional governments in Argentina, as well as halting 90% of public works, and the popular policy of reducing the number of public ministries from 18, as under the previous government, to only nine. Argentine bonds increased in value shortly after the president's announcement.

For Milei, the reduction of public spending and of the large deficit was an obligatory step in his objective of restructuring the Argentine state. The president assured that public deficits cause inflation, his arch nemesis, which in 2023 in Argentina was the highest in the Americas, reaching 211.4% at the end of Alberto Fernández's presidency.

What issue did Milei want to address without printing money?

In tackling Argentina’s inflation crisis, Milei has pursued monetary reforms such as devaluing the peso and proposing dollarization, while eliminating money-printing practices, though these measures have led to short-term inflation spikes, with inflation exceeding 200% in 2023.

Title:

Content: Updated 21 mins ago - Economy

Argentine President Milei's plan to remake the economy with a wrecking ball

If your economy is broken, you can try to fix it — or you can essentially just throw it in the trash and try to build something new from scratch.

Why it matters: The latter is, broadly, the plan of anarcho-capitalist Argentine president Javier Milei, while the former is the plan of Zambian president Hakainde Hichilema.

Where it stands: Milei came in like a wrecking ball after he took office in December. He slashed the official value of the currency in half, introduced a "mega-decree" scrapping 366 separate rules, and laid off 5,000 government employees.

  • Alejandro Werner, the former head of the International Monetary Fund's Western Hemisphere department, explains that this course of "shock therapy" carries enormous risks, both to the upside and the downside.
  • The devaluation, at least for the next few months, increases the Argentine inflation rate, which was over 200% in 2023. Milei's budget cuts will also cause a plunge in household income, as well as a deep recession.
  • The economic pain will embolden Milei's opposition — including in the courts, which have already suspended many of his early decrees. A general strike is planned for Wednesday.

What we're watching: Werner is hopeful that Congress will be at least minimally cooperative, that a good agricultural harvest will help replenish foreign reserves, and that inflation will fall to an annualized rate of 50% by the end of the year.

  • Argentina being Argentina, however, Werner notes, it's entirely possible that Milei's opponents in Congress will block most of his policies and devastating hyperinflation will result.

Reality check: Argentina's action stands in stark contrast to the zugzwang in Zambia, which is trying to restructure the old-fashioned way. There, creditors find themselves in a standoff without any obvious resolution — and where even the IMF seems powerless to move things forward.

Between the lines: Milei was quite the toast of the Davos elite this week, notwithstanding the fact that he's on the record calling climate change "a socialist lie."

  • "The Argentine economy is in such bad shape that it has to be shaken up. President Milei and his team are doing exactly that," said IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva in a CNN interview.
  • Milei returned the favor, saying that the CEOs assembled for his speech were "social benefactors" and "heroes."
  • "Let no one tell you that your ambition is immoral," he added.

The bottom line: For the time being, Milei seems to be able to draw on a wellspring of support and goodwill from the international community.

  • The IMF has restarted its program in the country, which means $4.7 billion in international funds have been unlocked and default isn't imminent.
  • All the same, Argentina's bonds are still trading at roughly the same level as those of Spirit Airlines. Some kind of default remains more likely than not — just pitched as part of a bold recovery plan, rather than being draped in anti-creditor rhetoric.
Go deeper

What economic issue did Milei want to address?

Milei’s approach to the debt crisis includes securing support from the International Monetary Fund, which has unlocked $4.7 billion in funds, while his austerity measures aim to stabilize the economy and prevent default, despite concerns over hyperinflation and social backlash.

Title:

Content: Javier Milei is elected president of Argentina.
Libertarian Javier Milei, who won the presidency of Argentina on Sunday, promised a radical overhaul to address decades of policy mismanagement, but his radical and bold ideas also raised doubts.
According to the official electoral body, after Sunday ’ s runoff, 99% of the votes were counted, and Milei received 56% of the votes, beating the 44% of the votes of Sergio Massa, the current economy minister.
The number of votes he won was unexpected, and Massa conceded the defeat before the results were announced.
Speaking to Argentines on Sunday night, Milei said his victory marked the beginning of "the reconstruction of Argentina."
“Today Argentina ’ s decline is beginning to end, ” he said.
“Today, the pattern of poverty in a country that is everywhere is over, one that benefits only a part of the population, while the majority suffers. ”
In the capital, Buenos Aires, hundreds of Milei ’ s supporters honked their horns, set off fireworks and sang his popular song against the political elite, “Get them all off! ”.
Milei ’ s main campaign promises include abandoning the peso and switching to the dollar and shutting down the central bank, while slashing public spending in an attempt to get the country of 46 million people out of trouble.
However, Milei ’ s shock therapy could also set Argentina on an uncertain path, with some economists warning that dollarizing the $622 billion economy while international reserves run out could plunge the South American country into another round of hyperinflation.
At the same time, IMF officials called on the next administration to restart the economy quickly, stressing that there was no time for progressive policies.
Argentina last week released its latest October inflation figures, which rose more than 140% a year to a 32-year high.
Milei will take office on December 10.
Related Posts

What issue did Milei want to address without printing money?

His reforms extend to deregulating labor laws, removing restrictions on rental markets, and privatizing state-owned enterprises, alongside significant cuts to subsidies in the energy and transportation sectors.

Title:

Content: Global Economic News
Millie's attempts to liberalize Argentina's economy
366 rules changed, including privatization, housing and work
Demonstration in Argentina against the decree of President Javier Milli.
"E.B.A."
Last week, Argentina ’ s libertarian president, Javier Milley, issued a sweeping decree to change or abolish 366 economic rules in a country accustomed to heavy government intervention in the market.
The move is the first of its kind in Argentina ’ s history, as none of its democratically elected presidents has attempted such a massive dismantling of the system.
That ’ s exactly what Milley promised during his election campaign, waving a chainsaw to symbolize his attempt to cut public spending as Argentina struggles with three-figure inflation after decades of fiscal mismanagement.
However, according to Argentine law, Congress still has the power to flood Melli ’ s program.
Change of daily life
Ten days after taking office, and on the eve of the holidays, Milley presented his "necessary and urgent" decree to loosen some of the rules governing the country's economy, where annual inflation has reached 160 percent.
One big change will be the removal of all restrictions between tenant and landlord, such as laws on increasing rents.
In recent years, landlords have increasingly priced their properties in dollars to avoid falling into the rental income trap that has long been overtaken by rising inflation.
This was a nightmare for tenants in a country where access to the dollar was tightly controlled.
Melli ’ s plan also loosened labor laws, increasing the probation period for new employees from three to eight months.
Compensation for Groundless Dismissal Laws have been amended in the interest of companies, and plans are being made to renegotiate labor agreements in force since 1975.
He also lifted export restrictions and said the internet market would be liberalized.
Milley also abandoned rules preventing the privatization of government institutions, already setting his sights on the national airline and the oil company.
He also moved to limit the right to strike enshrined in the constitution.
Purpose of the decree
Milley, a figure whose rise to the country ’ s highest office surprised most observers, blames the interventionist and protectionist policies of previous governments for stifling the economy.
Before the decree was announced, the new government had already devalued the Argentine peso by more than 50 percent and announced massive cuts in generous government subsidies for fuel and transportation starting in January.
“The goal is to begin the process of rebuilding the country, restoring the freedom and independence of individuals and beginning to dismantle the vast amount of systems that have halted and hindered economic growth, ” Milley said.
One protester said: "There may be people with Stockholm syndrome.
They are fascinated by a model that impoverishes them. ”
The opposition, who was recently ousted from the government, criticized Milley for the decree, seeing it as a way to overcome his lack of a majority in Congress.
Miley Libertad Avanza, who is only two years old, has only 40 of the 257 seats in the House of Representatives and seven of the 72 seats in the Senate.
German Martinez, speaker of the parliament of the Peronist coalition, said: "Uniting for the homeland is not the right way.
They sent the reforms as bills.
“Don ’ t be afraid of democratic debate. ”
Constitutional lawyer Emiliano Vitaliani said the country's highest laws state that "in principle laws cannot be amended by decree and the president cannot replace Congress."
Political scientist Lara Guiboro said the resolution "crosses all boundaries and rules out many issues that need political agreements from Congress and the provinces."
Vitalini said the decree could be revoked if it was rejected by both houses of Congress.
Otherwise it will come into force on December 29.
Constitutional lawyer Alejandro Carrillo said in an article in the Lanacion newspaper that "the president has made a very big bet, and his success will depend on his ability to obtain legislative support that is not yet known."
It comes at a time when Argentina is stuck in the grip of an economic crisis with the highest inflation in 30 years.
Cecilia Rojas is searching every store in the vast city of Buenos Aires to find affordable gifts for her children for what is expected to be a bleak Christmas day this year as Argentina faces its worst economic crisis in decades.
Rojas, 47, said: “Before, I used to buy from a well-known toy chain, but now I ’ m looking at smaller stores nearby to find a better price.
Rojas, a psychologist, has two sons, one aged 17 and the other eight.
This year, they will each receive one gift, knowing that they have received many gifts in previous years. ”
Argentina ends the year with the highest inflation rate in the past 30 years, over 160 percent year-on-year.
The 50 percent devaluation of the peso, approved by the government of liberal President Javier Milley on Dec. 12 two days after taking office, has led to a new price spike in a country where more than 40 percent of the population is poor.
Games prices have risen by 110 to 230 percent this year, according to figures from the Argentine Chamber of Gaming Industry.
Thus, shoppers on Christmas Day should be patient and seasoned.
Ogostina Jago, a 23-year-old mother of four, said: "If you walk a little, you can find the same product in different stores at different prices."
"This year, we will buy him a gift thanks to the help we get from grandmothers and fortunately, there are many of them."
The country is also under the brunt of the radical measures of President Javier Mille ’ s new government, which has issued hundreds of decrees to revive the ailing economy.
Milley, who has pledged to cut government spending, also announced deep cuts in subsidies on fuel and the transport sector starting in January.
His government also scrapped a programme to control the prices of some goods introduced by the previous government to try to soften the impact of inflation.
Milley warned that the country was on the brink of hyperinflation and that things would get worse before they began to improve.
Alexandra Mazi, a 49-year-old schoolteacher who took part in a protest against the new measures, said: “They are starving people, using policies that have been applied in the past and have not worked, and all they are doing is impoverishing the working class. ”
Milley ’ s government has forced organizers of its first protest to pay tens of thousands of dollars to cover the cost of deploying security forces to protect it.
Euronews reported that thousands of people took part in a demonstration on Wednesday against Milley ’ s austerity measures and to commemorate the bloody 2001 protests that followed the country ’ s economic collapse.
Government spokesman Manuel Adorney said the cost of the massive deployment of police and riot police was 60 million pesos ($73,000 at the official exchange rate).
“The bill will be sent to social movements ” as they“ bear responsibility for the cost that should not be borne by citizens, ” he said.
Publish it.
More Economic News - Global

How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

In the housing sector, tenant protections have been abolished, while in labor markets, probation periods for new employees have been extended and dismissal compensation laws amended to favor employers.

Title:

Content: Argentina's President Saves Economy, 5,000 Government Employees Don't Continue Inflation, People Crash
International Center Tsai Sha-ling / General Report
Javier Milei, a far-right liberal economist known as “Trump Argentina, ” announced a“ shock therapy ” after his election as Argentina ’ s president to rescue a serious economic crisis with drastic fiscal reforms, insisting that it is normal for things to get worse until concrete results are achieved, calling on people to survive the inflationary boom, and adding to a series of reforms, including the layoffs of more than 5,000 government posts, means that Thousands of government employees will not be rehired.
This is an advertisement, please continue reading.
Speaking to supporters, Mirei declared that he was “unwinding the suffocating web of government control ” and changing a large number of regulations that are hindering economic growth, stressing:“ We have no choice, no time, no room for meaningless discussion. ”
Our country needs to take immediate action, "he said.
In order to reduce government spending, Mirei announced that he will not renew the contracts of government employees hired before he takes office in 2023, and that he will be sworn in as president on December 10 this year; employees hired before 2023 will not be affected for the time being, but the related contracts will also be reviewed.
The report pointed out that the 2023 as the demarcation point, apparently in response to the former president's proposed salary increase in the last year of his term.
With inflation expected to reach 200% by the end of the year, Mirei intends to accelerate measures, including privatization of state-owned companies, in the hope of boosting exports and investment, easing labor laws, reducing protections for employees, making it easier for companies to lay off workers, and banning state intervention in the rental housing market.
In addition, energy and transportation subsidies will also be cut, and some government departments will be abolished.
Whether Mirey ’ s shock therapy will save the economy is still unknown, but people have taken to the streets to protest against soaring prices.
Some economists believe that although such measures may be necessary to solve Argentina ’ s long-term financial problems, without an adequate safety net, the poorest people in society may struggle to survive and may not be able to survive until the country ’ s economy returns to normal.
This is an advertisement, please continue reading.

How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

What industries were affected by Milei's deregulations?

Milei has dissolved several ministries, including the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity, consolidating others to streamline government operations and reduce public spending.

Title:

Content: December 16, 2023

As Argentina’s new president, it took only one day for Javier Meili to get rid of the Culture Ministry. Miley was inaugurated on December 10, and the next day, the liberal economist and former television commentator delivered on her campaign promise with characteristic bravery. Also on the chopping block – or, rather, in the path of her chainsaw, which Miley wielded throughout her campaign to symbolize her intention to cut government spending – was the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity.

Many other ministries were reduced in size and transformed into new entities. The Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security will be divided into a newly formed Ministry of Human Capital headed by former TV producer Sandra Pettovello. Meanwhile, the ministries of public works, transport, energy, mining and communications will be merged into a new infrastructure ministry. (It appears that the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity will be dissolved entirely.)

Coming out on top after a runoff election against Argentina’s former economy minister Sergio Massa, Miley is keen to show her supporters she is serious about austerity measures. The self-described “anarcho-capitalist” cut widespread subsidies for gas and electricity and canceled public projects, considering these actions necessary to bring Argentina’s economy under control. Additionally, Miley announced a plan to devalue the Argentine peso against the dollar to half its current value in an effort to prevent hyperinflation, a move lauded by the International Monetary Fund, which has held Argentina’s debt to the tune of $40 billion. More is due. Prices in Argentina have more than doubled in the past year, and 40% of the population lives below the poverty line.

Although Miley’s actions are presented as economic policy, they are also a means of exerting control. A fan of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro (former presidents of the US and Brazil, respectively), Miley has a history of blustering, ignoring reporters, and promoting far-right views on issues such as abortion, immigration, climate change, and gun ownership. He also regularly attacks his political rivals, labeling socialists “trash” and “human excrement”. (Bolsonaro also fired his country’s cultural ministry when he took office, and Trump congratulated Miley on her victory, saying he would “make Argentina great again”.)

Miley has referred to his country’s Ministry of Education as “the Ministry of Education”, and his disparaging view of the arts and humanities extends back to history – to the public accounts of those executed and disappeared by Argentina’s 1970s military junta. Casting doubt on the numbers and mocking human rights activists. Miley’s vice president, Victoria Villarruel, a regular supporter of the junta, in September called for a tribute to the “victims” of leftist groups of the 1970s and the dismantling of the ESMA Museum and Memory Site in Buenos Aires. , a former junta prison and torture center, has recently been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Source: www.theartnewspaper.com

In the energy sector, Milei initially proposed privatizing YPF, Argentina’s state-owned oil company, but later backtracked due to political opposition, while continuing to encourage private sector investment in renewables and other energy resources.

Title:

Content: November 20, 2023

Finally, when the results of Argentina’s presidential election became clear on Monday (November 20, 2023), the result was not at all surprising. However, the margin of victory was definitely there, and it is nothing less than a political earthquake.

Fed up with seemingly perennial economic malaise, lurking annual inflation hovering around 143% and widespread poverty affecting 40% of the population, Argentines turned in large numbers to 53-year-old economist and right-wing outsider Javier Miley.

The man often described by his critics and opponents as “El Loco”, or the mad man, came to power by winning a record 56% of the public run-off vote against Sergio Massa, an outgoing government minister and leftist rival. , with 44. ,

He won 20 of the country’s 23 provinces. Even the country’s capital, Buenos Aires, gave him preference over his rival and in some provinces Milley got as much as 70% of the votes.

His economic policies, many of which may be too strange for some, will undoubtedly be scrutinized ahead of his inauguration on December 10, 2023. But Miley’s core mission of “kicking the Keynesians and collectivists” may be paying off. He.

In addition to pledging to cut bureaucracy (a favorite of his fan base), the president-elect has also promised to “blow up” the central bank to stop it from printing more money, which he says is Argentina’s Increasing uncontrolled inflation. To mark some of the things said on the campaign trail. He also wants to abandon the local currency – the peso – in favor of the US dollar.

Will El Loco compromise Argentina’s energy policy?

Miley has also promised to cut public spending and privatize state-owned companies, which has inevitably increased interest in the energy world. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), Argentina has the world’s second largest reserves of shale gas and the fourth largest reserves of shale oil worldwide.

In 2022, Argentina produced 706,000 barrels (bpd) of oil and 308 tcf of natural gas in its Vaca Muerta shale formation. The flag bearers of Argentina’s hydrocarbon wealth are the state-owned oil companies YPF and Ensarsa.

More from ForbesHow billions of dollars of investment in AI are fueling innovation in the oil and gas sectorMore from ForbesScaling technology and will is key to ‘fast-tracking’ global energy transition

Miley confirmed his intention to privatize YPF in statements following his election victory. That caused New York-listed shares of YPF (NYSE: YPF) to jump 39% from Friday’s closing price of $10.78 to $15 on Monday (15:00 PM EDT).

However, Miley also told Argentinian broadcasters that before privatizing YPF, his administration would have to “reconstruct” it. The President-elect did not specify how long it would take or what kind of streamlining of operations and processes he had in mind. The market will undoubtedly pounce on them as the details emerge.

It appears that luck is also somewhat on the incoming President’s side. In a desperate attempt to curb crippling energy imports, his predecessor built pipeline infrastructure to monetize Vaca Muerta’s natural gas.

After an economically distressful and nearly 20-year long hiatus, energy exports have finally increased, including to neighboring Chile. In 2022, Argentina had an energy deficit of $5 billion and the current year is probably an exercise in balancing. But government data points to an energy surplus of $4 billion in 2024.

Depending on market direction, windfall profits could ultimately amount to $20 billion by 2030. Many people, perhaps including Miley herself, are hoping that Argentina’s energy exports will also help reduce the country’s overall trade deficit.

And the president-elect, who is proud to declare himself a climate skeptic, has also promised to free Argentina’s energy industry from red tape. This broad omnibus pledge appears to range from closing the country’s Ministry for the Environment and Sustainable Development to encouraging private sector investment in renewables, if there is a buyer.

There are also high hopes that efforts to explore for commercially viable oil and gas in the Falkland Islands – a British overseas territory 300 miles off Argentina’s southern coast, which Buenos Aires claims – could be more favorable and cordial. .

The two countries went to war over the islands in 1982, during the UK premiership of the “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher. A British expeditionary force recaptured the islands in June 1982, following a brief occupation by Buenos Aires following the Argentine invasion of the islands in April.

Successive leftist Argentine governments in recent decades have used the controversy for political gain, but Miley caused a political stir earlier this month by describing Thatcher as “one of humanity’s great leaders” in a televised debate. Created a stir.

While Miley, in line with many predecessors, still views Argentina’s sovereignty over the islands as “non-negotiable”, his tone is likely to be more cordial and could promote a gentler level of economic dialogue.

Don’t forget lithium

It is often said in politics that timing is everything and the broader energy complex also seems to be in Miley’s favor. According to the US Geological Survey, Argentina has the world’s second largest lithium reserves, estimated at 20 million tonnes.

Domestic production of the metal, vital to the world’s energy transition, is growing rapidly, and could reach 120,000 tonnes/year in 2024 (from current levels of about 60,000 tonnes/year). Miley’s encouragement of private sector investment could further up the game with about 40 projects under development in three active mines.

The only major detail in the energy policy actions is that Miley spent his entire presidential campaign attacking almost Argentina’s entire political class and politicians, especially those on the left.

But his party has very few seats in Argentina’s Congress. Despite her powerful mandate, Miley will now have to negotiate with the very people she attacked during the campaign to advance her agenda. This will not be easy. Although it is too early to say how this will all play out, there are solid grounds for cautious optimism.

Healthcare reforms under Milei include deregulating union-provided health care, allowing employees to opt out, which has sparked protests from labor unions concerned about the erosion of worker protections and increased social inequality.

Title:

Content: Argentina’s New Libertarian President, Javier Milei, Is on a Collision Course With His Country’s Powerful Labor Unions

Unions have promised a ‘total strike’ across the country Wednesday to protest Mr. Milei’s efforts to rein in a once-powerful central government and put Argentina on a path to prosperity.

Argentina’s new Libertarian president, Javier Milei, is on a collision course with his country’s powerful labor unions, a conflict that will come to a head Wednesday when the unions have promised a nationwide “total strike” to protest austerity measures enacted by Mr. Milei since he took office last month.

Union leaders speaking to the Financial Times say they expect as many as 200,000 people to take to the streets of Buenos Aires because the new president is “breaking the social contract” by passing an emergency decree that rolled back worker protections, deregulated many industries and began allowing employees to opt out of union-provided health care.

Around 40 percent of the country’s 13 million workers belong to labor unions that have for decades enjoyed considerable political clout under successive governments headed by leaders of the Peronist movement launched by strongman Juan Peron in the 1950s. That power evaporated overnight when Mr. Milei moved into the Casa Rosada, Argentina’s equivalent of the White House, on December 10.

The leader of Argentina’s Construction Workers Union, Gerardo Martínez, told the Financial Times that he hopes the strike —the earliest ever faced by a newly elected president — will force Mr. Milei to roll back some of his reforms and come to the bargaining table with the unions.

“We are aware that inflation [needs to come down.] We are embarrassed to have a country with this level of poverty,” Mr. Martínez said. “But we can’t accept that the cost of reaching economic stability falls solely on the backs of workers and the middle class.”

The tousle-headed Mr. Milei, who famously brandished a chainsaw during the campaign while promising to slash government spending and eliminate entire departments, has made good on some of those promises early in his tenure. He has slashed energy and transport subsidies and sent a bill to Congress that would privatize many of Argentina’s poorly managed state-run enterprises.

Mr. Milei already has backtracked on other issues, however, in an effort to secure the support of moderates in Congress, including taking off the table a plan to privatize the state-run oil giant, YPF.

While perhaps not exactly enamored by some of his fellow countrymen, Mr. Milei has become the darling of international free-marketeers since his full-throated defense of capitalism and the power of entrepreneurship to lift countries out of poverty during the annual World Economic Forum at Davos last week.

In a speech that has since been translated into dozens of languages, Mr. Milei stunned the normally left-leaning audience at Davos by blaming the decades of economic malaise that has plagued Argentina on the “collectivist” policies of his predecessors. Government, he said, is not the solution to what ails societies. Government is the problem, he said.

“The case of Argentina is an empirical demonstration that no matter how rich you may be, how much you may have in terms of natural resources, how skilled your population may be, how educated, or how many bars of gold you may have in the central bank — if measures are adopted that hinder the free functioning of markets, competition, price systems, trade and ownership of private property, the only possible fate is poverty,” he said.

As much as 40 percent of Argentina’s population is described as living in poverty, and inflation is currently running at a rate of 211 percent annually, the highest rate in 32 years. In Latin America, only Venezuela faces worse inflation than Argentina.

© 2024 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

Sign in or  Create a free account

By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

What does Milei promote in terms of healthcare and education?

Who has opposed Milei's proposed layoff order?

A central element of Milei’s monetary policy is dollarization, aimed at replacing the Argentine peso with the US dollar to combat hyperinflation, though critics warn this could deplete reserves and increase vulnerability to external shocks tied to US monetary policy.

Title:

Content: Argentina election: Javier Milei's radical proposals face test of reality

  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Javier Milei, the anti-establishment politician who cruised to victory in the Argentine presidential election last week, has courted intense controversy with radical, provocative policy proposals and statements.

This led many detractors of the self-styled "anarcho-capitalist" to call his candidacy a "leap into the void".

Now, with the mop-haired president-elect only two weeks away from taking over Latin America's third-largest economy, many are asking, how will his policies and positions face the test of reality?

Taming inflation takes time

Javier Milei had proposed to dollarise the economy and eliminate the Argentine Central Bank as a strategy to "kill" hyper-inflation. This meant making the US dollar the national currency in place of the Argentine peso, whose value, Mr Milei said, had been "melting like blocks of ice in the Sahara".

One obstacle is that ditching the Central Bank and making the US dollar legal tender would need approval from the Argentina's Congress and could even require changing the constitution.

Although Mr Milei convincingly won the presidency, his Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) movement is barely the third largest political force in Congress. This suggests difficult negotiations might be in store.

Some economists have also questioned whether Mr Milei's plans are feasible, saying they would weaken his government's ability to manage domestic monetary policy.

Having the US dollar as the Argentine currency would effectively leave interest rate policy in the hands of the US Federal Reserve. Argentina's economy would be more vulnerable to external shocks involving the US dollar, for example sudden rises in prices for oil and fuel imports, which could make internal adjustments even more painful inside the country.

Sceptics also point out that Argentina would need to have in hand the US dollars to replace the pesos. Experts believe this could require anywhere between US $35bn to $50bn which indebted Argentina currently does not have and may not be able to borrow easily.

Mr Milei himself has admitted his "shock adjustment" economic stabilisation recipe could actually take up to two years to bring down inflation. "Saying anything else is lying," he said.

A climate sceptic?

Another topic that had made media headlines was Mr Milei's apparent declaration of himself as a climate change "sceptic", that is, someone who denies the role of humans in global warming.

"I do not deny climate change. What I am saying is that there is a temperature cycle in the history of the Earth... Therefore, all those policies that blame humans for climate change are false," Mr Milei said during a presidential debate last month, causing much commentary and criticism.

In his proposed government programme, one of the numerous ministries he had said he planned to axe would be the existing environment ministry.

Such apparent climate scepticism risked putting Mr Milei sharply out of tune with an international majority of governments and leaders who plan to gather at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai soon to seek urgent solutions to the problems of climate change and global warming.

Pragmatism and the Pope

Before he was elected, Mr Milei virulently attacked Argentine Pope Francis, calling him a "Jesuit who promotes communism", and even the "representative of the evil one [the Devil] on Earth".

Such statements caused frictions with the local Catholic Church and the Vatican.

However, this antagonism appeared to miraculously dissipate only days after his election win, when Mr Milei had what he called a "very friendly" phone call with the Pope, whom he addressed as "Your Holiness", inviting him to visit Argentina in 2024.

Asked in a TV interview about this change of heart, Mr Milei conceded that, when one is president, "there are some things that require greater doses of pragmatism".

No break with China and Brazil

Before his election, Milei had signalled he could freeze ties with Brazil and China, Argentina's two top trading partners, on the grounds that he did "not make pacts with communists".

"I am going to be aligned with the United States, Israel, and the free world," he said.

Not surprisingly, this assertion caused consternation in Beijing and Brasilia, as well as in Argentina.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson was quoted as warning that it would be a "huge foreign policy mistake" for Argentina to cut ties with countries such as China and Brazil.

Mr Milei's predecessor, outgoing left-wing President Alberto Fernández, had carefully nurtured ties with Beijing and had welcomed an invitation to join Brics, the China-led group which also comprises Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa.

Experts questioned the wisdom of dismantling a relationship that clearly brought benefits to Argentina, and not only by China being a top market for Argentina's soybean, meat and grains.

China was also helping to prop up Argentina's financial reserves with a major currency swap deal - significant support for a country already heavily indebted to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Days after the election, however, there seemed to be clear signs that no major break in relations was planned. The president-elect received a personal letter of "congratulations and good wishes" from Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mr Milei himself made a point of thanking Xi on social media.

Mr Milei's pick for foreign minister, Diana Mondino, also dismissed as "nonsense" any suggestion that there would be a rupture in "commercial relations" with China or Brazil.

In Brazil, Mr Milei's invitation for former President Jair Bolsonaro to attend his 10 December inauguration was interpreted as "unfriendly" towards Brazil's current left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

But Milei has since said Lula would be "well-received", if he wanted to come.

Dictatorship denial

Mr Milei and his vice-presidential running-mate Victoria Villarruel also ignited intense controversy during the campaign with their position regarding Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship.

Defying traditional positions held by Argentina's government and society for the last 40 years, Mr Milei caused outrage by contesting the generally accepted estimate of those abducted and "disappeared" in the dictatorship - 30,000 - asserting the actual number was closer to 9,000.

The candidate argued that the political violence of the 1970s in Argentina was a two-sided "war" in which "the forces of the state committed excesses but the terrorists [anti-government guerrillas] ... [also] committed crimes against humanity".

This equivalence of presentation of the two sides raised howls of protest from groups like the Plaza de Mayo mothers and grandmothers of disappeared persons.

This was just another striking way in which the Milei-Villarruel duo were trying to shake up the political status quo in Argentina. The next four years will show if they can do it.

What economic issue did Milei want to address?

Milei has also proposed eliminating the Argentine Central Bank, arguing that its existence has historically fueled inflation and monetary instability, and views its removal as essential to achieving financial stability.

What economic issue did Milei want to address?

While comparisons to successful dollarization cases like Ecuador and Zimbabwe have been drawn, experts caution that Argentina’s lack of sufficient dollar reserves and complex economic challenges could hinder the feasibility of such a transition.

Title:

Content: November 25, 2023

Following Sunday’s election results, Javier Meili is set to become Argentina’s president on December 10. Among other things, President-elect Miley has vowed to replace the peso with the US dollar, a policy known as dollarization. Some critics have argued that dollarization would deplete the Argentine central bank’s US dollar reserves, making dollarization excessively costly and ultimately resulting in hyperinflation. However, in leveling this criticism, they misinterpret Argentina’s current economic situation and fail to consider real-world cases of dollarization during an inflationary crisis.

The risk of hyperinflation in Argentina is not due to Javier Miley’s advocacy of dollarization. Instead, it is the result of years of bad monetary policies. Inflation has been rising steadily since 2007, long before Miley proposed dollarization (and almost anyone in Argentina even thought about the possibility of dollarization).

Some experts argue that, by international standards, Argentina is already experiencing hyperinflation. According to Philip Kagan’s seminal 1956 study, most economists define hyperinflation as an inflation rate greater than 50 percent monthly. To put this in perspective, the average annual inflation rate in Europe between 1950 and 1955 was 5.1 percent. In Kagan’s words, a hyperinflation country experienced monthly price increases that were ten times greater than the price increases experienced by a typical European country in a normal year.

The monetary policy landscape is very different today than in the years immediately preceding Kagan’s study. Over the five-year period ending January 2020, just before the pandemic, the EU’s average annual inflation rate was just 0.98 percent. Using Kagan’s ratio, this would mean that a country experiencing at least 9.8 percent inflation per month has hyperinflation. Argentina saw monthly inflation rates of 12.7 percent and 8.3 percent in September and October, respectively. Therefore, adjusting Cagan’s hyperinflation threshold to reflect general improvements in monetary policy elsewhere would reveal that Argentina is already experiencing hyperinflation. While there is certainly potential for further decline, critics of dollarization need to acknowledge just how serious Argentina’s inflation is in the context of the modern global economy.

International experiences show that dollarization and hyperinflation are interconnected issues, but this is not the case according to critics of dollarization. For example, Ecuador adopted dollarization in January 2000 to prevent hyperinflation. Ecuador’s dollarization proved effective. Dollarization immediately brought Ecuador’s inflation rate into alignment with that of the US and then kept it stable over the next decade, despite economic challenges and two sovereign debt defaults. Another compelling example is Zimbabwe, which adopted dollarization in January 2009 to combat hyperinflation. The result was also successful, with inflation reaching US levels by January 2010. As these cases show, dollarization may be a solution to hyperinflation. Argentina could also either resort to dollarization to prevent hyperinflation, or avoid it if inflation gets out of control.

The risk of hyperinflation in Argentina stems not from an intention to create a dollar but from a central bank that appears unable or unwilling to exercise restraint. Argentina’s historical record shows that central bank independence is absent and not easily secured. For better or worse, dollarization offers the safest path to avoid monetary collapse. This provides Argentina with an opportunity to implement much-needed reforms and move forward on a sustainable development path. Dollarization may make things worse before they get better. But to argue that monetary reform that is supposed to tame inflation will lead to hyperinflation is a distorted view of Argentina’s economic reality.

nicholas kachanowski

Dr. Kachanowski is Associate Professor of Economics and El Paso Woody L. Hunt is the director of the Center for Free Enterprise at the University of Texas in the College of Business. He is also a Fellow of the UCEMA Friedman-Hayek Center for the Study of a Free Society. He served as President of the Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE, 2021-2022) and on the Board of Directors of the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS, 2018-2022).

He received his Licentiate in Economics from the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina, his M.A. in Economics and Political Science from the Escuela Superior de Economía y Administración de Empresas (ESADE), and his Ph.D. M.A. in Economics from Suffolk University, Boston

Dr. Kachanowski is the author of Reflexions sobre la economia argentina (Instituto Acton Argentina, 2017), Monetary balance and nominal income targeting (Routledge, 2019), and co-author Austrian Capital Theory: A Modern Survey of Essentials (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Capital and Finance: Theory and History (Routledge, 2020), and Dollarization: Una Solution for Argentina (Editorial Claridad, 2022).

Dr. Kachanowski’s research has been published in outlets such as Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, public choice, Journal of Institutional Economics, Quarterly Review of Economics and FinanceAnd Journal of the History of Economic Thought among other outlets.

Get notified of new articles from Nicholas Kachanowski and AIER.

Source: www.aier.org

Politically, Milei has positioned himself as an outsider challenging Argentina’s traditional party structures, particularly the dominance of Peronism and the two-party system, appealing to disillusioned voters seeking alternatives to the status quo.

Title:

Content: International News

Who Is Javier Milei?

Alex Paszkowicz

Brandishing a chainsaw throughout his electoral campaign, the libertarian and self-proclaimed ‘anarcho-capitalist’ Javier Milei won the Argentine general election on 19th November 2023. Milei’s policies and personality cause controversy, so who is the television pundit turned politician?

Beating his rival Sergio Massa with 14.4 million votes to Massa’s 11.5 million, Milei will begin his 4-year mandate starting on 10th of December. After winning a majority of just 4 out of the twenty-four Argentine provinces, Massa conceded defeat at the Unión por la Patria‘s campaign house before the results were officially published.

The centre-left finance minister admits that “obviously these are not the results we hoped for, and I have spoken to Javier Milei to congratulate him because he’s the president that the majority of Argentines have chosen for the next four years”.

Massa has also hinted that he will retire from front-line politics.

The Peronist political movement has been pushed out of government

Milei’s victory has dismantled the left-wing political establishment, even ending Argentina’s 2-party political system. Created in the 1940s by Juan and Eva Perón, the Peronist political movement has been pushed out of government, despite ruling for sixteen out of the last twenty years. His campaign fell short despite Massa continuously appealing to voters’ fears surrounding Milei’s volatile character and risky economic policies.

Compared with Massa, and judging by the election result, Milei is seen as the lesser of two evils in Argentina, as the previous Peronist government could not provide economic stability.

The third-largest Latin American economy has almost reached inflation of 150%, and 40% of Argentina’s 45 million population is in poverty. Furthermore, the International Monetary Fund has rescued the Argentine state twenty-two times, with the most recent loan of $44 billion in 2018.

Milei used his platform […] to circulate conspiracy theories

Economist Sergio Armella believes, “it is indisputable that a swift change from the failed economic policies of the past is imperative. The accumulated economic imbalances have grown too large and must be addressed promptly”.

Nicknamed ‘El Loco’ and before running for president, Milei used his platform on television to circulate conspiracy theories around election fraud and Argentina’s economic problems.

Combined with his extravagant personality and viral TikTok videos, he targeted a younger audience who had grown up through economic hardship and strict Coronavirus lockdowns. Milei’s camp is also known to question the national consensus, which has lasted four decades, over the crimes of its 1976 to 1983 dictatorship, which killed around 30,000 people.

“The reconstruction of Argentina begins” [Milei]

The man with five cloned dogs, each named after a different right-wing economist, claims that with his new mandate, ‘“the reconstruction of Argentina begins”. Calling the result a “miracle” in his victory speech, he says that the result “marks the end of decadence in Argentina”.

He believes Argentina will return to being a “global power”, while alluding to those conspiracies he supported in his past where previous governments, “shared the state amonpoliticians and their friends”.

Although he abandoned his chainsaw to improve his public image, the symbol refers to his promise to decrease inflation by cutting public spending by 15% and privatising state companies, while reducing fuel and electricity subsidies.

Milei wants to abolish the central bank and adopt the US dollar as its official currency, to stop the country from printing more money like previous governments. If the dollar’s value continues to devalue, then inflation could rise with a risk of hyperinflation, which could return after three decades.

Aims to sever ties with China

Milei has no interest in joining the BRICS alliance, and aims to sever ties with China to help move towards privatising state-led companies like the oil industry.

According to economist Elizabeth Bacigalupo, this includes an estimated $10 billion in annual savings on energy imports through a new gas pipeline in Vaca Muerta. Also, this year, the drought in Argentina reduced its agricultural exports from $39 billion in 2022 to $23 billion. But with next year’s predictions, exports could be up to $40 billion.

The problem Milei faces is how fragmented the Argentine Congress is. The coalition he formed with the conservatives after the first round only has 10% of the Senate and 15% of the lower house, meaning he will have to negotiate with his political rivals to push through his complicated reforms.

Any delay in economic progress could lead to more inflation and social unrest.

Despite insults hurled at Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, by Milel throughout his campaign, he wished him support on social media, saying “democracy is the voice of the people and must always be respected”.

Donald Trump believes Milei will “Make Argentina Great Again”

Former US president Donald Trump believes Milei will ‘Make Argentina Great Again’. Businessman Elon Musk expressed a similar sentiment and posted, ‘prosperity is ahead for Argentina’.

Reactions from Milei supporters are varied, with voters desperate for change. A supporter named Michelle Chelsea in Buenos Aires says, “economic policies have led us to this situation. Today, more than half of the population has voted for a different option, and I hope that things will change a lot”.

A Food Service Worker, Alejandro Bravo, is hopeful for the future. “It’s an incredible joy. It’s the end of a never-ending decline, so to corrupt politicians, we say, “get lost”‘.

“We’ve had enough corruption, enough insecurity, enough inflation, enough poverty. We were very tired, we wanted something new, we wanted to see new faces”, states supporter Barbara Rubin.

Alex Paszkowicz

Featured image courtesy of Angelica Reyes via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.

For more content including Uni News, Reviews, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Features and so much more, follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and like our Facebook page for more articles and information on how to get involved.

To keep up to date with all the latest Impact News, you can also follow us on the Impact News’  FacebookInstagram and Twitter page.

Categories
International NewsNews

His governance model has raised concerns about democratic norms, as he frequently bypasses legislative scrutiny through emergency decrees and omnibus bills, concentrating power in the executive branch to expedite neoliberal reforms.

Milei’s rhetoric and policies, such as the abolition of the central bank and privatization of state assets, reflect a radical libertarian ideology that prioritizes market-driven solutions over institutional norms, further challenging traditional governance frameworks.

Title:

Content: Javier Mille wins election in Argentina: ultraliberal known as commentator and says he will “end political caste”

Sergio Massa, the United presidential candidate for the Fatherland coalition (center-left), which currently leads Argentina’s government, confirmed on Sunday night (19), what had been expected for several hours, without official data, analysts said: “Javier Millay elected president by majority of Argentines for next four years.”

The defeated candidate and current Minister of Economy highlighted in his speech from his campaign headquarters: “I hope that this is a very long and difficult campaign, serious accusations and respect for those who think differently will continue to be established in Argentina” . In that brief statement he also indicated that he had already spoken with the President-elect.

With nearly 87% of ballot boxes counted, the results were 56% for Javier Mili and 44% for Sergio Massa.

The candidate is defined as ultraliberal and anarcho-capitalist

One of Milei’s most popular projects is closing The central bank, the end of the Argentine peso and the dollarization of the economy, but the destruction of most ministries. The candidate of the “A Liberdade Avança” coalition emerged as a surprise in the primary elections, winning with 30% of the vote and becoming the central figure of the election campaign, the first time the far right has come to power since the recovery. Democracy, 40 years ago.

After working as a university professor and in the banking industry, he became known to the public as a television commentator.

He was elected in a climate of inflation that could reach 200% by the end of the year, and he campaigned against what he called “political caste”, which he accused of living as a parasite on state revenue, impoverishing people. It boosts the economy and hinders the development of the country.

See also  India wants to recover Kohinoor, Elizabeth II's diamond - News

Speaking with the “World at Your Feet” podcastFrom Expresso, Argentine political scientist Andrés Malamud described Javier Mili as “An anarcho-capitalist who doesn’t trust the state and clones his dog [que já morreu], He is the one who believes he is talking to the divine.” In August, when he won the primary, he thanked “Conan, Murray, Milton, Robert and Lucas”, Dogs.

Conan, now deceased, was named after the 1982 film “Conan the Barbarian”. Others pay homage to economists the new president admires: Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman and Robert Lucas.

Institutional reforms under Milei include abolishing ten of Argentina’s eighteen ministries and merging others into streamlined entities, such as the Ministry of Human Capital, to cut public spending and centralize administrative functions.

He has leveraged emergency decrees to repeal over 300 laws and regulations, facilitating privatization and deregulation, which critics argue undermines democratic norms and institutional checks.

How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

Milei’s reforms aim to reshape Argentina’s political system by promoting a libertarian vision that frames the state as an obstacle to economic growth and societal prosperity.

Title:

Content: The content originally appeared on: Al Jazeera – Latin America News

Argentines are voting in a presidential election that might see a far-right populist leader, who has vowed to overhaul the Latin American country’s ailing economy, emerge victorious.

Polling stations opened their doors at 8am local time (11:00 GMT) and are expected to accept voters until 6pm local time (21:00 GMT), with results to come by late Monday.

During Sunday’s ballot, voters are also selecting members of the Congress and provincial governors, specifically 130 lower house representatives and 24 national senators.

Decades of economic decline and record inflation have propelled libertarian outsider Javier Milei, the 52-year-old far-right populist leader of the Liberty Advances party, to the front of a tight race.

The eccentric economist and first-year lawmaker, who has described himself as an “anarcho-capitalist”, had emerged as an unexpected frontrunner in the August primary election.

Milei has been compared to controversial leaders like Donald Trump in the United States and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and has been winning support among some Argentinians by promoting radical policy changes.

Voters are angry at traditional parties for failing to address the Latin American nation’s ailing economy for decades.

Milei has mostly focused on the economy, which experts agree is perhaps the most severe challenge facing Argentina right now, with inflation standing at a whopping 138 percent in September and only expected to grow by the end of the year.

To fix the economic issues, Milei has proposed eliminating the central bank, replacing the local currency with the US dollar as Ecuador and El Salvador have done, and slashing public spending.

He has also promised cultural reforms as he has presented himself as an opponent of socialism at home and abroad, and is a staunch critic of abortion, which he has described as “murder” even though it was legalised by the country’s Congress in 2020.

Milei’s main rivals are Patricia Bullrich, a 67-year-old former security minister who is the candidate for the centre-right Together for Change coalition, and Sergio Massa, the 51-year-old incumbent economy minister who represents the governing Peronist coalition.

To win the presidential election, a candidate must secure 45 percent of the vote, or 40 percent plus a 10-point lead over their closest competitor.

Pre-election polls give Milei the best chance of winning, but they have proven notoriously unreliable in past elections.

So, it is possible that there will be two winners, which would force a second round of voting in November.

A new president and vice president are expected to take office on December 10.

Social welfare programs have been significantly impacted, with measures such as the termination of government food packages to community kitchens, exacerbating food insecurity among vulnerable populations.

Title:

Content: Skip to content Skip to footer

Argentines Take Feminist Strike to the Streets on International Women’s Day

Activists demand an end to austerity measures, growing poverty and worsening food insecurity under President Milei.

Argentinian women from all walks of life will take to the streets nationwide on 8 March, International Women’s Day, as part of a feminist strike calling for an end to the country’s growing poverty, which already affects 57% of the population of 46 million.

The protesters’ “most important demand” is a solution to Argentina’s “food emergency”, said María Claudia Albornoz, an activist from La Poderosa, a group that defends the rights of the five million people living in the country’s 6,500 slums, or villas miseria (misery villages).

Three months after right-wing libertarian president Javier Milei took office, Argentina’s ever-increasing food inflation has reached 56%, according to the latest analysis from La Poderosa. Government data shows the country’s annual inflation rate is 254%.

Real-terms wages and pensions are deteriorating, and people go to supermarkets not knowing whether the money in their pockets will be enough to buy foods they could afford just a few days ago.

Shoppers have one certainty, though: what were once basic goods such as shampoo are now luxury items. The small local grocery stores that allow their customers to pay on an informal trust-based credit system now keep track of only the items and quantities purchased, no longer bothering to note down the prices that are constantly rising.

The spiralling cost of living has been worsened still by Milei’s cuts to ‘ollas populares’, community kitchens run by social, civil and religious organisations, which are a last resort for the most impoverished families.

There are around 44,000 of these kitchens across Argentina, which were able to produce around 10 million meals a day last year.

Since then, Milei’s administration has stopped the government packages of non-perishable food staples, such as pasta, rice and yerba mate (a traditional herbal drink) being sent to these kitchens, arguing that it must conduct an audit on how they use these resources.

The cuts have led to “a very desperate situation”, said Albornoz, whose group La Poderosa runs 158 kitchens nationwide.

“Without these basic food staples, we cannot cook,” she said. “This causes us enormous distress, sadness and pain, because we can’t feed our families, a role that is very much attached to women and gender non-conforming people.”

Protesters have taken to the streets nationwide to demand the cuts are reversed, but the government has doubled down.

Ministers claim the kitchens’ volunteers — many of whom are part of larger groups of organised unemployed, informal workers and leftist activists known as ‘picketers’ — are committing “extortion” by using food to lure people to their protests. They say they made the cuts to end this practice, advising people to enrol in the government’s food support program rather than relying on the community kitchens.

The minister of human capital, Sandra Pettovello, even mocked protesters as they gathered outside the ministry, saying: “Boys, are you hungry? Come one by one and I’ll write down your ID number, your name, where you’re from and you’ll receive help individually.”

But four days later, as more than 10,000 people lined up to meet her, Pettovello signed a $210,000 food assistance agreement with the Christian Alliance of Evangelical Churches of Argentina. “No longer will the picketing organisations be in charge of distributing food and social plans paid for by the national state with the money contributed by working Argentines,” she said.

Shifting Priorities

It is primarily the austerity measures, growing poverty and worsening food insecurity that the 8M feminist strike will denounce this week.

For the first time since feminists began holding open decision-making assemblies in 2015, participants have agreed to make tackling hunger the demonstration’s priority.

Organisers have drafted a manifesto to read out during the demonstration, which includes statements aiming to challenge ‘libertarian’ ideas advocated by Milei, such as: “With hunger and without rights, there is no freedom” and “Enough of austerity and repression”.

Assemblies allow any civil society group or individual to present their concerns to be discussed. They have achieved something that no other social movement in Argentina has managed to: working together to tackle issues of reproduction of domestic and community life, as well as formal and informal work.

But in previous years, the assemblies’ middle-class feminists, who are more likely to be educated, have sought to give priority to protests on issues such as access to abortion, femicides and gender-based violence.

Now, as the country’s economic situation has worsened, their goals have shifted. They are now in agreement with working-class feminists, who have long argued that food security must be their top concern.

“What seems to me to have changed this year is that we are a priority,” Albornoz said. “Feminists were able to begin to reach a consensus on issues that we, the slum dwellers — the people who cannot cover the basic food basket — consider a priority.”

The food basket Albornoz referred to are the essential food items required to sustain an adult for a month. These cost $110 when converted from pesos at the official exchange rate, more than half the average monthly earnings of a person living in an urban area ($218).

The assemblies allow villeras (women who live in slums), feminist academics, trade unionists and LGBTIQ people to share their lived experiences and political thinking, which has enabled the feminists to agree on strategies of resistance.

This is more important than ever, as the misogynist discourse Milei regularly touted during his election campaign has in recent months materialised as an avalanche of regressive measures stripping away the rights of women and LGBTIQ people.

The president has scrapped the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity, replacing the entire department with an undersecretariat for protection against gender violence in the newly created Ministry of Human Capital.

His government has also ended two support programmes for victims of gender violence — one that sought to strengthen their economic independence, and another that provided psycho-social and legal help — and fired many of the public employees who worked on the hotline for counselling and assisting victims.

It also closed the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism, and banned the use of language that is inclusive and gender-neutral in public offices or documents. Defending the move, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said inclusive language was being weaponised as “a political business”.

The government has further plans to weaken or dismantle legislation that feminists fought for, such as the 2019 Micaela Law, which introduced mandatory training in gender and gender violence for all public servants and the Law on the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy, which legalised abortion in 2020.

Ministers claim these closures and austerity cuts are needed to fix the ailing economy, but the main attacks on women and LGBTIQ people have come from the president himself.

In his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in mid-January, Milei spoke of “the cruelty of the bloody agenda of abortion”, said gender inequality no longer exists and branded feminism “a ridiculous and unnatural fight between men and women”.

Feminists fear the president’s misogyny, combined with his cuts, mean Argentina is “heading towards a scenario of worsening violence in general and gender violence”, according to Raquel Vivanco, who founded the Observatorio Ahora Que Sí Nos Ven (the Now That They See Us Observatory), which tracks femicides in the country.

“These structural conditions of extreme poverty and unemployment, as they increase inequalities, create more violence that can in turn increase numbers of femicide statistics,” said Vivanco.

There were 42 femicides in Argentina in January and February of this year. The observatory recorded the highest-ever number of femicides (297) in 2019, which was rightist president Mauricio Macri’s last year in office and was characterised by austerity policies that were harsh but not as extreme as those being introduced by Milei.

“Left With Absolutely No Rights

Though widespread hunger and attacks on women’s rights are the protesters’ main priorities, they also want Milei to address his measures of ‘economic terror’ and his denials that gender inequalities exist in Argentina.

Lucía Cavallero, a sociologist and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires and a member of Ni Una Menos (Not One Less), a group that fights gender violence, told openDemocracy about the dire economic situation in Argentina.

“There is an unprecedented devaluation of the peso, a deliberate freezing of wages and social subsidies, so inflation is brutal, and a perverse discourse of warning that it could be worse,” she said. “Added to all this is the deregulation of the economy in almost all areas.”

The government’s own data shows that one million people fell into poverty every month for the past three months. Albornoz believes these figures are an underestimate, though, telling openDemocracy that La Poderosa’s analysis indicates an increase of six million impoverished people in the past two months.

Argentina’s school year recently started, forcing many families to try to find creative solutions to not being able to afford school supplies, which cost an average of $150, or uniforms.

The best case scenario saw children reuse items from previous years or pick up supplies from the donation drives that took place across the country. At worst, though, “mothers said they would have to choose which children to send to school because they don’t have the school supplies or the smocks to send them all,” said Cavallero.

The effects of this economic and political turmoil are also being seen in housing, particularly since the government repealed the law regulating the rental market on 29 December.

“It left us tenants with absolutely no rights,” said Tamara Lescano, an activist from the social movement Inquilinas Agrupadas (Tenants United). “The lack of a legal framework enables real estate abuse”.

Rental contracts now have no minimum period and are able to be terminated at landlords’ discretion, without a need to consult the tenants or give a reason for the eviction — which was previously illegal. Landlords can also include unreasonable clauses in the tenancy agreements.

Lescano said the private rental sector in Argentina, which already encompasses some 10 million people, is growing — yet fewer and fewer landlords own more properties than ever.

Inquilinas Agrupadas receives an average of between 40 and 50 requests for advice every day, mainly from women with dependent children, pressured by their mostly male landlords.

“They Are Coming For Us”

The 8M strike faces a fresh challenge this year. Four days after Milei took office, his government outlawed any public protest involving the blocking of roads with a new ‘anti-picketing’ protocol that contains specific clauses allowing the police to criminalise, persecute and stigmatise protesters.

“They identify you in the marches, they take pictures of you, they film you. When we mobilise, the police, who are very violent, quickly repress us,” said Albornoz.

“This has already happened at various times,” she added, referring to hundreds of protests against Milei’s austerity measures that have been organised by different social organisations across the country in recent months.

The protocol also allows the government to issue protest organisers with hefty fines, deprive demonstrators of social aid, and punish parents or guardians who take minors to the marches.

These measures are attempts to intimidate the poorest, many of whom are women, said Gabriela De la Rosa, a member of the Polo Obrero, a social organisation affiliated to Argentina’s Trotskyist Workers’ Party, which runs 3,000 community kitchens nationwide.

“The movement of the unemployed is made up mostly of women comrades, who mobilise with their entire families because they have no one to leave their children with in order to demand food for their children,” De la Rosa told openDemocracy. “On the picket lines, in the encampments, in the mobilisations, the families often have a pot to eat, and at home, they don’t.”

As well as the risk of harsh policing, Argentinian feminists worry their protest could turn violent — fearing Milei’s repeated attacks, coupled with food insecurity and the general uncertainty caused by inflation and low wages, have set the stage for social unrest.

“There is fear of what might happen in the 8 March demonstration,” Albornoz acknowledged. “We have been holding assemblies to dispel this fear and to make the women understand that if we don’t take to the streets and defend our rights, we are going to lose much more than we have already lost.”

The feminists “will take all possible precautions” to avoid violence in the 8 March demonstration, said economist Candelaria Botto, the director of Economía Feminista, which seeks to expose gender inequalities in the world of work and business.

“But we know that we have to be there, on the streets, because they are coming for us.”

The future of our journalism depends on you.

Thank you for reading Truthout. Whether you’re a long-time reader or a first-time visitor, we need to make a request of you today.

Truthout is one of few truly independent news publications left. We’ve been able to publish stories like this one for over twenty years because of donations from readers like you.

At this moment, we’re working to increase our monthly recurring donations, gifts that form a critical core of our operating expenses. We hope to add $400 in monthly gifts in the next two days. If you can support us in this way, please make a monthly donation in any amount.

One-time donations are also vital – anything you can give makes a difference.

The dissolution of the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity and the end of support programs for victims of gender violence have raised concerns about increased gender inequality and reduced protections for marginalized groups.

Austerity measures, including subsidy cuts and deregulation, have contributed to rising unemployment and poverty, with child poverty projected to reach 70% in early 2024.

Title:

Content: People 's Network > > International
International observation _ How effective is the reform of Argentina 's President Mile' s 100 days in office?
March 20, 2024 15: 28 | Source: Xinhua Network
Small number
Xinhua News Agency, BUENOS AIRES, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Argentine President Gloria Macapagal-Millet has been in power for 100 days
Xinhua News Agency, Wang Zhongyi
Argentine President Gloria Macapagal-Millet has launched a series of "shock therapy" reforms aimed at reducing the fiscal deficit and controlling inflation since he took office last December.
The two main reform measures proposed by the Millet government are still pending due to parliamentary procedures.
Argentina has achieved a fiscal surplus for two consecutive months, and inflation has eased, but unemployment has increased, industrial production has fallen and prices have risen.
Analysts believe that whether the reform can get parliamentary support, whether inflation can be controlled, and whether public anxiety can be relieved are still challenges facing the government.
Prospects for reform uncertain
In his first month in office, Millet introduced two major reforms, a necessary emergency decree called "The Basis of Argentina's Economic Reconstruction" and a comprehensive bill called "The Basis and Starting Point of Liberties for Argentines", aimed at loosening government and legal control over the economy, reducing the fiscal deficit and facilitating import and export trade.
Mile also devalued the peso, Argentina's currency.
On March 14, the Argentine Senate voted to reject the necessary emergency decree signed by Millet, which will then be submitted to the Chamber of Deputies for consideration and vote.
According to Argentine law, even if the decree is rejected by the Senate, the decree may enter into force if it is passed by a vote of the Chamber of Deputies; if it is rejected by the Chamber of Deputies, the decree will be null and void.
The bill, which has not yet been passed by the parliament, is currently scheduled to be amended to be submitted to the parliament for consideration.
Analysts believe that the resistance to the reform mainly comes from the left and the trade unions, and because the ruling party and the left-wing opposition parties do not have a majority in both houses, Millet still needs to win the support of the central parties to push for the reform.
Sun Hongbo, deputy researcher of the Latin American Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that the Milai government intends to carry out a systematic and radical reform, but the relevant reform measures are facing various political checks and balances.
On the whole, Millet's government is facing constraints from various forces, such as the ruling coalition, left-wing parties, local governments and trade unions, and there are many uncertainties in its prospects for radical reform.
People's plight to be alleviated
Recently, many news is regarded as good by the Argentine government: Argentina's central bank cut its benchmark interest rate to 80%, two consecutive months of fiscal surplus, inflation pressure has eased, the International Monetary Fund approved another 4.7 billion US dollars of loans to Argentina, Argentina completed more than 50 billion US dollars of debt replacement.
Despite this, the population of Argentina is still plagued by rising unemployment and rising prices.
In March, the Argentine people ushered in the day of resumption of work and school, but many people received calls to be dismissed.
Argentine media reported that companies said sales had fallen sharply and could not afford to hire so many employees.
Unemployment, poverty and rising prices loom over the Argentine population.
Argentine sociologist Marcelo Rodríguez said that more than 50,000 jobs have been lost due to government cuts, layoffs and the withdrawal of funds from public programs, and unemployment in Argentina is expected to rise in the future.
According to the latest report of the Argentine Industrial Union, Argentina's industrial production index fell to 29.9% in January this year, the lowest level in recorded history, and for the seventh consecutive month it was in the contraction range of less than 50%.
The report said that more than half of the small and medium-sized enterprises in the survey declined in output, and multiple sets of data showed that the plight of industrial production in Afghanistan has intensified, with small and medium-sized enterprises bearing the brunt
According to UNICEF, poverty among children and adolescents in Argentina will reach about 70% and extreme poverty 34% in the first quarter of 2024.
On March 18, a number of labor unions in Argentina launched marches in Buenos Aires and other cities across the country. In January, a number of national trade unions and leftist organizations also held a national strike to protest that the reform measures of the Mile government ignored the rights of labor and social vulnerable groups, resulting in the suspension of services in banks, gas stations, airports, airlines, sanitation and other industries in Argentina.
Economy faces stagflation challenge
Argentine economist Gustavo Nefa believes that the Mile government has reversed the decline in Argentina's dollar reserves in the past 100 days, but the country's economy still faces the challenge of stagflation.
Argentina's National Institute of Statistics and Census data show that Argentina's inflation rate in February this year was 13.2%, down from 20.6% in January and 25.5% in December last year; the cumulative inflation rate in the past 12 months reached 276.2%.
Rosendo Fraga, a researcher at the National Institute of Ethics and Political Science in Argentina, said that although the monthly inflation rate has decreased, inflation is still at a high level.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a report on January 30, predicting that Argentina will face recession and rising inflation in the context of a sharp economic policy adjustment.
The report predicts that the Argentine economy will shrink by 2.8% in 2024.
Argentina's TN news television recently quoted a report by the international rating agency Moody's Investors Service saying that the Argentine economy is expected to shrink by 5% in 2024, a decline far beyond the 2.5% forecast in November 2023.
In terms of inflation, Argentina ’ s inflation rate is expected to exceed 280% in 2024 and will still exceed 220% in 2025.
(Editor: Yu Yang, Xu Xiangli)
Share it so more people can see it.
Back to top

Milei’s foreign policy emphasizes free-market principles and rejects partnerships with socialist regimes, as seen in his refusal to engage with China and Brazil on governmental agreements despite their status as Argentina’s largest trading partners.

Title:

Content: Countdown to the day of issuance
0
23
11
50.
Go to Election Zone
Argentina's presidential election with 143% annual inflation: far-right candidate Millet wins, once said "no business with socialism"
Argentina 's right-wing candidate Mille (left) won the presidential election, and on the 19th, her sister Carina (left) thanked her supporters. Photo Credit: GettyImages
What we want you to know is
Millet, a far-right liberal, refused to do business with “socialists ” before the election and was seen as targeting leftist Brazil and China, Argentina ’ s largest and second-largest trading partners, respectively.
He said China could be a business partner for Argentina ’ s private companies and that he would not interfere, but that his government would not sign agreements with the Communist Party and would not encourage relations with it.
In Argentina ’ s presidential runoff on Sunday, far-right candidate Javier Milei defeated the current economy minister and leftist candidate Sergio Massa in the second round of voting.
The election result was described as an agreement by Argentinian society, which is experiencing a hundred percent inflation rate, to apply “shock therapy ” to the country ’ s economic policies.
There are also fears that Millet ’ s conservative social policies could seriously undermine education and human rights in Argentina.
Argentina ’ s presidential election system is a two-round voting system, and Massa temporarily led in the first round of voting in October, but this Sunday ’ s final result, Milai defeated Massa by more than 10 percentage points (Milai won 55.7% of the vote, while Massa won 44.3%).
Sunday ’ s election also ended earlier than usual, with Massa publicly admitting defeat at 8: 00 local time and announcing his resignation as economy minister to help the new government transition.
Mirai gave a speech at 10: 00 p.m. local time.
He said Argentina needed a huge structural reform, with no gradual, lukewarm and half-hearted surplus, or it would “go to the worst crisis in Argentine history. ”
Mile points out that Argentine society is facing inflation, economic stagnation, low employment and poverty, and he promises to solve these problems with liberalism.
Millet will take office as president on December 10.
Argentina Votes for ‘ Shock Therapy ’ With Biggest Inflation in 32 Years
Lucas Romero, head of Argentina ’ s political consultancy Synopsis, said Millet ’ s victory was due to what he said was a unique personal trait that was closer to popular desire for change, an election that showed the fatigue, weariness, and protest vote of most Argentines.
The election comes as Argentina faces crippling debt pressures and inflation, with $45 billion of debt owed to the International Monetary Fund, the highest inflation in 32 years (Argentina ’ s annual inflation soared to 143% in October, its highest since 1991) and the black market exchange rate for the local dollar soaring to 1,900 pesos from 163 pesos to $1 a year ago. Dollars.
It is not difficult to understand that the result of the election was the Argentine people said "no" to the economic policies of the current government, and Reuters called it the "shock therapy" chosen by the Argentine people.
Shock therapy is a radical way to curb inflation. By tightening the currency, the government suppresses consumption, forcibly bridging the gap between supply and demand, and curbing inflation in a short period of time.
But the social economy suffered a great impact, so there is a "shock therapy" metaphor.
Millet is an economic liberal who calls Argentina a tax hell and should cut government spending quickly to balance the budget.
He also advocated abolishing the central bank of Argentina and replacing the current depreciating peso with the US dollar.
Millet ’ s proposals for reform resonated particularly with young voters who were angry about the economic downturn.
They are tired of the fact that Argentina has long been governed by either the current leftist government, Unión por la Patria, or the right-wing JxC, and that Millet ’ s party, the Partido Libertario, was founded in 2018, mostly by young people.
Millet ’ s supporters say only he can root out the political status quo and economic woes that have plagued South America ’ s second-largest economy for years.
Santiago Neria, a 34-year-old accountant, said Milai was the only option to keep Argentina from falling into tragedy, while Irene Sosa, a 20-year-old student, said, “Milai represents the future of young people like me, and Massa represents all the problems of our country. ”
Mariano, an Argentine citizen currently living in Taipei, told the Critic Network that although he disagrees with Millet ’ s political ideas and policies, he believes that someone must make a change in Argentina.
He also believes that no matter what Millet does, the situation in Argentina will not be worse, the only concern is Millet's decision on social policy.
Millet is economically liberal, arguing that health care and education should be privatized, and even compulsory education should be abolished, "so that everyone in Argentina can pay for their services."
He is a conservative on social issues, calls himself a Catholic, and opposes abortion (which was legalized by the Argentine Congress in 2020).
Milley is also a follower of former US President Donald Trump, claiming that climate change is a lie, that sex education destroys families, that the sale of human organs should be legalized, and that people have the right to own guns.
Millet ’ s deputy, Victoria Villarruel, is also facing a lot of controversy. The daughter of a soldier, she has long denied the crimes of Argentina ’ s military dictatorship, and she has promised to expand the military budget after her election.
This reflects Argentina ’ s dark military history, with six coups d ’ état by the Argentine army between 1930 and 1976.
Argentina has cut its military budget since its return to democracy in 1983.
Brazil and China "congratulate" Millet for "not doing business with socialism"
Millet, a far-right liberal, refused to do business with “socialists ” before the election and was seen as targeting leftist Brazil and China, Argentina ’ s largest and second-largest trading partners, respectively.
He said China could be a business partner for Argentina ’ s private companies and that he would not interfere, but that his government would not sign agreements with the Communist Party and would not encourage relations with it.
In August this year, the Argentine government joined the "BRICS 5" led by China and Brazil, and together with six countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia became the "BRICS 11". Milai's election also added variables to Argentina's BRICS membership.
Former US President Donald Trump congratulated Milai on the social platform, saying that the world is watching the election, he will be proud of Milai's victory, and even more bluntly said that Milai will turn the country and make "Argentina great again!"
However, the current president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said only that he congratulated Argentina for showing order and peace in the election, and he wished the new government well, without mentioning Mille. He stressed that Brazil will always be a brother state of Argentina and always willing to work with Argentina.
Colombia ’ s left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, meanwhile, called it a “sad day ” for Latin America.

He has prioritized alignment with the United States and Israel, signaling a shift towards the 'American-Israeli axis' and planning to move Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem.

Title:

Content: Two events and an indication that took place last week suggest that there is a new rise of the extreme right in the world, from Europe and the United States to South America.
The three events are the electoral rise of the Dutch far-right Freedom Party, then the victory of the extremist Javier Milley in the presidency of Argentina, and the third indicator is the continued rise and lead of Donald Trump in the opinion polls.
The right-wing Freedom Party won 37 seats in the Dutch parliament, more than double its share, and will therefore have the upper hand in forming a government.
Geert Wilders, 60, founded his party in 2006 with the aim of defending Dutch, not European, culture and identity.
One of the party ’ s most important slogans is to fight against immigrants, especially Arabs, and it has called Moroccan immigrants “scum ” and organized competitions for cartoons offensive to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and vowed to ban the Koran, mosques and the hijab.
He pledged to stop the tsunami of asylum seekers, impose strict controls to “protect Dutch identity and values ” and deport Syrian migrants.
He is also skeptical of the European Union and considers Brussels and its excessive bureaucracy a threat to national sovereignty, calling for greater control over laws, borders and economic policies and pledging to hold a referendum on his country ’ s remaining in the bloc.
The Freedom Party says it is a great friend of the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, and that relationship will be strengthened by moving the embassy to Jerusalem and closing the Dutch cultural center in Ramallah.
The second important event was the victory of Javier Milley as president of Argentina, whose basic policies are almost identical to those of the Freedom Party in the Netherlands and other far-right forces and parties in the world.
He said his first foreign visit would be to the United States and he would meet with a number of Jewish rabbis there, because he follows their teachings.
The second visit will be to Israel, pledging to move his country ’ s embassy to occupied Jerusalem, and his foreign policy will focus on cooperation with the “American-Israeli axis ” and will not negotiate with leftist regimes such as Brazil and China.
The first to congratulate him was also the right-wing former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.
Milley pledged to deal in the US dollar, abolish the central bank, abolish the health and education ministries, and privatize some major public companies.
But the irony is that the new president ’ s party, Freedom Advances, did not get any of the governors ’ posts, which are dominated by the Peronist movement, and he was also remarkable for saying that his country would not participate in the BRICS and did not intend to work with Russia, China and communist countries.
Millie also said he admired Trump and the latter said he would attend his inauguration.
The third indicator is that opinion polls indicate that Donald Trump is ahead of all potential challengers in the presidential election late next year.
A recent Harvard Center poll with The Hill found that Trump had 48 percent of respondents compared to 41 percent for current president Joe Biden, and even the uncertain 11 percent, when asked again, 53 percent said they would vote for Trump and 47 percent for Biden.
In November, a New York Times poll showed that Trump was five points ahead of Biden in Arizona, six in Georgia, five in Michigan, 10 in Nevada and four in Pennsylvania, while Biden was just two points ahead of Trump in Wisconsin.
From the previous events and indicators, it can be concluded in principle that with the sharp polarization in international relations, the severe economic crisis resulting from the Coronavirus epidemic, the Russian-Ukrainian war, inflation, recession and the Israeli attack on Gaza, the rise of far-right forces will continue in many countries of the world, especially Europe, especially the eastern side.
This means that in the next stage, the world will come to periods of intense polarization, conflicts and possibly wars.

What are some of the "liberal democracies" that the Milei administration prioritizes partnerships?

Milei’s outreach to the IMF and U.S. officials reflects his strategy of leveraging neoliberal principles to attract international support for Argentina’s economic reforms.

Title:

Content: Off course.
Anarchist president could not be "planted" on the dollar - RIA Novosti, 29.11.2023
Registration was successful!
Please follow the link from the letter sent to
Off course.
The anarchist president could not be “hooked ” on the dollar
Argentina ’ s new president makes first visit to the United States
© AP Photo / Natacha PisarenkoJavier Miley, who won the presidential elections in Argentina, during a speech to his supporters
Javier Miley, who won the election of the President of Argentina, during a speech to his supporters.
Archive photo
Read ria.ru in
MOSCOW, 29 Nov — RIA Novosti, Renat Abdullin.
The winner of the presidential elections in Argentina, Javier Miley, arrived on a visit to the United States to establish contacts.
However, in Buenos Aires, judging by some reports, already refuse excessive rapprochement with Washington.
About what has changed, in the material RIA Novosti.
"Spiritual" trip
Before the inauguration more than a week, however, Miley already felt himself the owner of the country and actively took up work.
© AP Photo / Natacha PisarenkoJavier Miley
Javier Miley
The libertarian (as he positions himself) came to power with a far-right populist agenda, tied primarily to the economy.
This is a big problem in the country - inflation has exceeded 60% only since the beginning of the year.
Miley promised to literally destroy the Central Bank and move from the peso to the dollar.
He is also against joining the BRICS, which was agreed in August.
Now it's in question.
It is symptomatic that Miley made his first foreign visit to the United States.
However, as noted by the publication La Nacion, the main purpose of the trip is “spiritual ”, namely, a visit to the grave of the leader of the Lubavitcher Hasidim Menachem Mendl Schneerson in New York.
Miley has repeatedly spoken of his closeness to Jewish faith and traditions.
Then he plans to go to Israel.
The dollar will wait.
The company he was made by the former Minister of Finance of Argentina Luis Caputo (who is expected to be the head of the Ministry of Economy), as well as Nicolas Posse (likely Prime Minister).
The delegation met with representatives of the US Treasury, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs.
Shortly before the trip, Miley had a telephone conversation with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.
The parties did not disclose the details of the conversation, but they have something to talk about: Buenos Aires owes the fund $44 billion.
On the postponement of payment in 2018 agreed Mauricio Macri, then the President of Argentina, and now one of the main allies of Miley.
As for the US representatives, according to AFP, citing sources in Buenos Aires, the purpose of the conversations with them was “to explain the economic plan of the new (Argentine) administration, including financial adjustment, monetary reform, state reform and deregulation. ”
There is no question of loans or any kind of mutual preferences.
In addition, Miley had lunch with Bill Clinton, who “is pretty much on the other side of the ideological barrier, ” notes U.S. News.
The meeting was "a particularly unexpected part of the first overseas trip."
This behavior of Miley went against his recent rhetoric and promises to switch to the dollar.
Moreover, according to the Financial Times, this idea can be shelved at all.
As the FT reminds, the newly elected president wanted to appoint Emilio Ocampo, an ardent supporter of dollarization, as head of the Argentine Central Bank.
Now, says a source close to the economist, the candidacy was withdrawn from consideration.
So, Miley does not intend to “change ” the peso to the US currency in the short term.
"Communists" - non-alternative partners
This is not the first signal about softening the position of the president compared to pre-election plans.
At the end of last week, his office called the rumors about the promised "destruction" of the Central Bank false and not negotiable.
The head of state himself noted that before the transition to the dollar, it is necessary to study "whether the situation (this) allows."
The layout on the outer perimeter also changes.
If recently Miley called the President of Brazil Lula da Silva “a communist with whom he would not deal ”, now called to the inauguration on December 10.
Foreign policy adviser Diana Mondino went to Brasilia with the appropriate invitation.
“The main message is that we are fraternal countries.
And we will remain them, ” — said the diplomat. — We must work hard together to ensure the growth of both countries. ”
“It is one thing to criticize ideology, and another to criticize the person, ” Mondino quotes Bloomberg.“ We must separate the state, the government and the people. ”
© AP Photo / Eraldo PeresPresident of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
However, she did not tell whether she discussed with her Brazilian colleagues the Argentine future in the BRICS.
She added: “We are already working with almost all countries (associations). ”
One such state is China, which was also the target of criticism of the new Argentine leader.
"I am a defender of freedom, peace and democracy.
Communists, the Chinese do not relate to this, ” he said in September in an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson.
Now Miley has changed his anger to mercy.
The other day in the social network X (former Twitter), he thanked President Xi Jinping for congratulating on his election and sent "the most sincere wishes for the well-being of the Chinese people."
Brazil and China are the main trading partners of Argentina, so the desire to maintain relations with them is understandable.
The question is how the United States will react.
Washington is used to seeing Latin America as a backyard.
But the last bet on Miley, even nicknamed the local Trump, obviously does not work yet.
News feed
0
New firstOld firstFirst
loader
On-line
Title of the material to be opened
To participate in the discussion,
log in or register
loader
Discussions
Title of the material to be opened

What are some of the "liberal democracies" that the Milei administration prioritizes partnerships?

Public opinion in Argentina has become sharply divided, with supporters viewing Milei’s libertarian reforms as a path to economic revival and detractors criticizing them as authoritarian and destabilizing.

Title:

Content: BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Argentina’s Javier Milei Is Looking To Bluff His Political Rivals

Following
Click to save this article.
You'll be asked to sign into your Forbes account.
Got it

And just like that, Argentina’s ultra-libertarian president, Javier Milei, sent the whole socio-political-economic ecosystem into disarray

Praised for his moderation and pragmatism during the first few weeks of his presidency, the self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist has now put in place a series of controversial measures which have divided public opinion, generating a new iteration of Argentina’s infamous “grieta,” our very own version of the polarization that has now become the norm across the so-called ‘Western World.’ But, it’s no longer about the antagonism between Kirchnerites and their opponents, mainly represented by Mauricio Macri and the Juntos por el Cambio coalition, but about those blindly in favor of the wild-haired economist and those denouncing his every move as a diabolic, anti-democratic part of a ferocious plan to tear down the tenets of Argentine society.

Both sides seem to agree that he is executing a carefully crafted plan that will either elevate Argentina back to the lost status of “global power” of the late 19th century or ravage the nation in order put it on the chopping-block and conduct a fire sale to hand over the crown jewels to global financial elites. Those with access to the Casa Rosada tell a different story though, one of amateurism and incomplete staffing that would suggest the La Libertad Avanza coalition is acting more out of necessity than Machiavellian genius.

Milei finally broke out of his honeymoon period with those who didn’t vote for him after launching a massive package of reforms through a “decreto de necesidad y urgencia,” an emergency decree (DNU) which has become the standard practice for presidents seeking to bypass Congress and is generally used for less ambitious projects. The DNU is truly massive, with 366 articles including the repeal of multiple laws which call into question the constitutionality of the measure, even if governing via DNU is already contrary to the spirit of the Constitution and something that has happened in each of the last several administrations. It was quickly followed by the Omnibus law, equally as massive in its scope and ambition, and its capacitiy to divide the political field.

Put together by liberal economist Federico Sturzenegger, who ran the Central Bank under Macri and helds no role in the Milei-Villaruel administration until after the project was presented, the “mega-decree” was announced by national (and obligatory) broadcast several weeks in a dramatic scene that had Milei as the protagonist in the foreground and his whole team standing behind, statue-like, as the president read sternly.

Earlier that day they had scored a political victory with Security Minister Patricia Bullrich’s “anti-picket” protocol making its debut, effectively diluting the first public protest against the government. Some reports indicated there was more security than 'piquetero' protesters. Weeks later, the General Confederation of Labor united the pan-Peronist opposition in a massive march that managed to remain cordial, respecting Bullrich's protocol by trying to show political muscle in the streets.

The reform package conformed by DNU and Omnibus bill immediately generated the reaction of Milei's political opponents, along with a substantial portion of the population who took to the streets for a traditional “cacerolazo,” a protests with pots and pans reminiscent of the worst days of the 2001 crisis. There are no coincidences. Congressional leaders from the pan-Peronist Unión por la Patria coalition spoke with union strongmen from the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) umbrella union group. Members of the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) warned of unconstitutionality and specialist lawyers indicated Milei was trampling all over the Constitution by failing to respect the separation of powers. Buenos Aires Province governor Axel Kicillof, probably the leading member of the Peronist opposition, and his government decided to ignore Bullrich’s “anti-picket” protocol claiming it violated the constitutional right to protest. A few weeks before, Economy Minister Luis ‘Toto’ Caputo unveiled the government’s initial economic plan, generating a similar reaction in the political field which didn’t seem to make its way to the general population. The situation is beginning to change and as the actual implications of the Milei administration’s actions make an impact, social and political actors will begin to respond.

There should be few doubts that one of the strongest points of La Libertad Avanza’s electoral strategy had to do with communications, particularly on social media. These early moves suggest they will try and double down, betting on the use of their skills to try and compensate for the lack of political support, despite a strong victory over both Sergio Massa and the Peronists, and Bullrich and Juntos por el Cambio. Toto Caputo, however, is known to be particularly uncomfortable with the media. His pre-recorded message several weeks ago announcing tough economic measures — many of which contradicted Milei’s campaign promises, particularly tax hikes — was delayed several times reportedly due to the need for multiple takes and Milei’s direct involvement (or maybe indirectly through sister Karina). The second measure he announced, for example, was a year-long reduction of government advertising to zero – a direct strike to the beleaguered media industry and a measure that has practically zero impact on the deficit but high popular approval. The over-dramatization of the security operation to contain a moderate-to-small protest early into the presidency, together with pictures of Milei and Bullrich supervising from police headquarters, allowed them to take advantage of the far-left Partido Obrero to score an easy win and show his electorate that they can control the streets. Yet, controlling a couple of thousand protesters is one thing. The CGT protest that brought together the political and social power of the unions remained under control, and that's a win for the government, but it was a political protest. If the middle class begins to lose its temper, and expectations, Milei could face a much more difficult scenario.

The “basis for the reconstruction of the Argentine economy” reform package could be another attempt to win the communications game and take the spotlight to appear active in the eyes of the public opinion. With absolute minorities in both chambers of Congress and several controversial reforms included in a massive package passed by Milei’s mega-DNU, it's difficult to imagine that it will quickly pass in the Chamber of Deputies, despite an early win at the commission level with the help of the former Juntos por el Cambio coalition. Furthermore, several interest groups are putting together legal arguments to dispute the issue in court, especially the labor reform which has been stayed. It could quickly make its way to a Supreme Court that has already proven eager to interject politically.

Ultimately, most, if not all, of the regulations, laws, and measures included in the decree will have to make their way through Congress and will therefore be subject to negotiations and amendments. Yet, Milei has shown initiative and wants to maintain, or extend, the popular support which took him to victory in the run-off and has already generated a circumstantial majority in the Senate to defeat the Peronist caucus and at the commissions to get the Omnibus bill past the first obstacle.

There are risks that the ultra-libertarian could prove authoritarian and anti-democratic. He’s shown some of that in the past, particularly by claiming he would govern by plebiscite if he didn’t have the support of Congress (something Hugo Chávez did to amend the Venezuelan constitution) and by picking a dictatorship denialist as his running-mate. Many of his detractors have pointed to signs that suggest Argentina could descend into a state of totalitarianism, and this emergency decree fuels their suspicion.

It’s not clear whether the conditions for such a situation are in place. For now, he seems to be bluffing his political opponents. We’ll see if someone calls his hand.

This piece was originally published in the Buenos Aires Times, Argentina's only English-language newspaper.

Follow me on Twitter

Mass protests have erupted in response to austerity measures, including subsidy cuts and privatization plans, with critics accusing the government of exacerbating economic inequality.

Title:

Content: Millie is facing the minefield of the economy, politics and society of Argentina
Argentina ’ s president-elect Javier Milley ’ s sweeping reform package overcame the first parliamentary hurdle, winning public approval on the third day of debate in the House of Representatives, while the initiative, which included economic, social and political areas, sparked strong protests from the opposition and the Argentine street.
Argentina has been embroiled in a long-running conflict with severe economic crises that have led its citizens to turn their attention to Mili, who won a resounding victory in last October ’ s election.
As a result of public discontent over decades of economic instability, with annual inflation surpassing the 200 percent threshold and poverty levels rising to 40 percent, Milley embarked on a “bold path to redefining Argentina ’ s future. ”
Massive opposition.
Tens of thousands took to the streets in defiance of Milley ’ s austerity measures, which included cuts to the balance sheet.
The demonstrations disrupted parliamentary debates, leading to confrontations between law enforcement forces and protesters.
Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas, and sprayed protesters with water cannons, with reports of injuries and arrests among protesters.
The leftist opposition withdrew from parliament, denouncing what it saw as a severe police crackdown on protesters.
Opposition MP Mariano del Canio told the AP that "we can't work this way", stressing that protesters should be heard before they return to the hearing after a period of suspension.
Parliamentary manoeuvres
In a strategic move to bolster his program, Milley secured IMF approval to disburse nearly $4.7 billion to Argentina.
The package of reforms, dubbed Omnibus, spans across different sectors, from electoral and cultural reforms to privatization, penal code amendments, and changes to the status of football clubs.
The House of Representatives, by 144 votes to 109, granted general approval, paving the way for the next phase of negotiations in the Senate.
The bill ’ s 664 clauses, which sum up the complex fabric of Melli ’ s reforms, will be subject to close scrutiny and possible amendments.
Although the House of Representatives has generally approved Melli ’ s reform bill, negotiations are on the horizon.
The complex details of the bill, which include economic, administrative, criminal and environmental areas, will be subject to strict scrutiny, according to a pro-plan parliamentary description.
Lawmakers, some of whom have expressed reservations about specific articles on privatizing state companies and delegating legislative powers to the president, are due to participate in detailed discussions.
Milley ’ s challenge is not just to overcome ideological differences, but to build consensus within a fragmented political landscape.
The upcoming recess will provide a break before crucial negotiations resume, marking a pivotal stage in Milley ’ s ambitious agenda for his program.
Millie's presidency is at a crossroads.
Milley ’ s presidency, marked by libertarian principles and capitalist ideals, faces the complex challenge of balancing economic liberalization with societal expectations.
Austerity measures and privatization plans were not without opposition, leading to protests and even a general strike.
The president ’ s swift measures, including a 50 percent devaluation of the peso, cuts in subsidies, and deep cuts in ministries, reflect his confrontational approach to tackling the government ’ s budget deficit and fighting inflation.
However, these actions have aroused resentment, as protesters have questioned the potential impact on the most vulnerable groups in society.
The course of Melli's reforms will shape the country's economic and social landscape.
Experts say that the fine line between government initiatives, parliamentary negotiations and street reactions highlights the multifaceted nature of Argentina ’ s current socio-political reality.
As Argentina grapples with historic economic challenges, observers expect Milley ’ s presidency to be a decisive chapter, with the split between economic liberalization and social welfare taking center stage with every decision that resonates in the corridors of power and crowded streets.
Source: Al Jazeera + Associated Press

Milei has defended his reforms as necessary to address Argentina’s economic crisis, framing his actions as efforts to dismantle interventionist policies and restore individual freedoms.

suspended 366 decrees to ease economic controls and reduce spending.

What is Milei's argument about closing CONICET and relying on private investment for research?

It could help adress Argentina's fiscal crisis

His policies represent a sharp departure from previous administrations, particularly the Peronist governments, as he seeks to dismantle state intervention and implement libertarian measures to address economic instability.

Title:

Content: Argentina sees the light with Maverick Javier Milei – Ivo Vegter

In a surprising turn, libertarian firebrand Javier Milei secured Argentina’s presidency after a second-round victory against his left-wing rival. Vowing to end decades of socialist mismanagement, Milei, an outspoken economist, faces challenges in implementing radical reforms, including abolishing ministries and dollarising the economy. While hailed as the world’s first libertarian president, Milei’s uphill battle involves legislative opposition and managing economic pain amid promises of a freer, market-oriented Argentina. Skepticism remains, awaiting the true impact of his ambitious plans in a nation grappling with deep-rooted economic struggles.

Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.

Argentinians see the light

By Ivo Vegter*

It took a second round of voting, but the libertarian Javier Milei has defeated his Peronist rival to become president of Argentina.

A month ago, Javier Milei unexpectedly lost the first round of the Argentinian general election to his left-wing Peronist rival, Sergio Massa, after the latter had cynically promised zero taxes as a way to bribe voters.

In my column on the lessons South Africa could draw from that election, I said: ‘Let’s hope Argentinians see the light before Massa and Milei face off in the run-off election.’

Happily, they did see the light.

After decades of economic malaise under a government that for most of the last 30 years has been socialist, corrupt, wasteful and incompetent, leaving Argentina eighth from last in the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World Report 2023, they elected Milei, a libertarian firebrand, in the biggest landslide since Juan Perón’s election in 1973.

Milei becomes the first libertarian president, not only of Argentina, but in the world. The closest precedent that comes to mind is that of Calvin Coolidge, the small-government conservative president during the Roaring Twenties in the US, but Milei is far more radical than that.

‘“oday the reconstruction of Argentina begins’, he said, after winning 56% of the vote in the head-to-head race. That was also his first lie as president-elect, since he doesn’t actually take office until 10 December, but we’ll let that slide.

Radical

To describe Milei as radical would be putting it mildly. He has described the country’s ruling elite as thieves and the government as ‘a criminal organisation’. He has promised to abolish ten of the government’s 18 ministries. He said he would do away with the central bank and dollarise the Argentinian economy.

‘The model of decadence has come to an end’, he told his supporters. ‘There’s no going back. We have monumental problems ahead. Inflation, lack of work, and poverty’.

Milei is an accomplished economist, and largely follows the Austrian School of individualist free-market economics. He has variously described himself as an anarcho-capitalist and a minarchist (an anarchist who accepts the legitimacy of a small government dedicated to protecting life, liberty and property).

He has been extraordinarily outspoken on the evils of socialism and statism, and how they turned Argentina from a once-wealthy world power into an over-indebted, poverty-stricken, underdeveloped basket case.

Mainstream media

The mainstream media, with its largely left-leaning bias, has compared Milei to former presidents Donald Trump of the US and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil.

‘Argentina set for sharp right turn as Trump-like radical wins presidency’, trumpeted the Washington Post

‘Argentina Elects Javier Milei in Victory for Far Right’ was the headline in the New York Times, which added: ‘Argentina’s next president is a libertarian economist whose brash style and embrace of conspiracy theories has parallels with those of Donald J. Trump.’

The ‘embrace of conspiracy theories’ is a particularly vicious jab. Readers would have to follow a link to find an explanation, and it turns out that the Times only referred to Milei’s allegations of polling irregularities, which have not been tested.

It is entirely plausible that Argentina’s electoral system is less secure than that of the United States, and that the incumbents – who went as far as abolishing taxes in order to engineer a win – might have been involved in some electoral skulduggery.

Allegations of election fraud are very common on all sides of the political spectrum, and do not, in and of themselves, rise to the level of the debunked claims of Trump, and his attempt to derail the orderly election of his rival.

Authoritarians

More importantly, both Bolsonaro and Trump are alt-right populists. They are moral authoritarians – not liberals – and appeal to collectivist – not individualist – principles such as nationalism and protectionism. They have often, rightly, been described as fascist, which is just as antithetical to libertarians as is left-wing socialism.

That both former presidents expressed their support for Milei has a lot more to do with shared anti-socialist positions than any real congruence in their political philosophy.

Milei has himself rejected the right-wing label, and indeed, his classical liberalism (for which ‘libertarian’ in the American sense is a synonym) does not yield to a simplistic left-right analysis. Rather, it falls on the liberal end of an authoritarian-liberal scale, and on the progressive end of a conservative-progressive scale.

Sour-grape-ish

Milei does have some views that are questionable, or traditionally associated with the conservative right, such as his anti-abortion stance and his rejection of climate alarmism.

Neither define him, however, and both are issues on which libertarians can and do disagree.

By similar logic, Milei’s promise not to dismantle Argentina’s extensive social welfare programmes does not make him some sort of left-winger.

In focusing on incidental agreements between Milei and leaders like Trump and Bolsonaro, and ignoring the fundamental philosophical differences between the former’s individualist, free-market, small-government ideas and the authoritarianism, nationalism, populism and protectionism of the latter, the media does both Milei and their readers a great disservice.

That a politician does not perfectly reflect all one’s personal political or moral views is in any case far less of a concern when that very politician proposes as far as possible to keep government out of people’s personal affairs and to leave most of the world’s problems to the private sector.

‘When your response to everything that is wrong with the world is to say, “There ought to be a law,” you are saying that you hold freedom very cheap’, said Thomas Sowell.

Moreover, it seems extraordinarily petty and sour-grape-ish to complain about a few differences of opinion with a candidate who promises radical change in a country that is mired in economic crisis, thanks to the policies of its incumbent rulers.

Music to the ears

Sniping from the mainstream press aside, the rise of a truly libertarian president in one of the world’s most economically unfree countries should be music to a classical liberal’s ears.

Who doesn’t want to radically slash the size of government? Who doesn’t question the inflationary monetary policy of highly indebted countries? Who doesn’t want to see free enterprise flourish, and witness the departure of a government that strangles business with red tape and taxes, and tries to pick winners by throwing subsidies at favoured companies?

On the face of it, this should be an excellent experiment to show whether the libertarian prescriptions for government do, indeed, produce a better outcome than the socialist quagmire in which Argentina has been stuck for so long.

Pain and gain

Practically speaking, however, there are reasons to remain skeptical.

First, we’ve only seen Milei’s talk, and not his walk.

Second, making drastic changes in the structure of a country’s government and economy, as Milei proposes, will be painful.

It is arguable that the short-term pain is justified by the long-term gain, but electorates are rarely forgiving to those who inflict necessary pain. Witness Margaret Thatcher, who saved Britain from the socialist economic malaise of the 1970s, but remains hated to this day by those who bore the brunt of her reforms.

Dollarising an economy does not produce immediate results, for example. It can take years before the stabilising effect of dollarisation filters through to low inflation rates. It can, however, immediately harm people and even increase poverty levels, depending on the exchange rate at which existing deposits are converted.

Drastically reducing the size of government will also face much immediate opposition, especially from civil servants who stand to lose their jobs.

Privatising healthcare, education or other government functions is also fraught with transition difficulties. Much depends on exactly how such privatisation is carried out. It can fail, and even if the eventual outcome is a success, it could cause years of disruptions and dissatisfaction.

Then there are the entrenched patronage networks of the incumbent socialist government, who will be highly upset – and fight back vigorously – when the taps of corrupt fiscal spending get turned off.

Finally, few voters have the patience to wait five or ten years for radical free-market reforms to have a positive impact, and Argentina’s president only serves a four-year term before facing the electorate again.

Legislative opposition

A further obstacle to Milei’s reforms is that he will not be the philosopher-king of every libertarian’s dreams. He will not be a dictator.

He will simply be the head of the executive in a constitutional parliamentary democracy, with strictly circumscribed powers.

And the elections did not result in a similar landslide in the legislature.

Argentina has a 72-seat Senate, or upper house, and a 257-seat Chamber of Deputies, or lower house. Together, they make up the Argentinian National Congress.

In both houses, Milei’s libertarian coalition, Liberty Advances (La Libertad Avanza, or LLA) took more seats from the conservative coalition, Together for Change (Juntos por el Cambio, or JxC), than from the socialist Peronista coalition, Union for the Homeland (Unión por la Patria, or UxP).

In the Senate, this leaves the Peronistas as the largest coalition, with 32 seats. It would need 37 seats to command an outright majority. The conservative coalition, JxC, retains only 27 seats. As the third-largest party in the Senate, Milei’s LLA only has six seats, which even in coalition with the conservatives is not enough for an outright majority.

In the lower house, the picture is similar. UxP has 104 out of 257 seats, JxC has 93, and LLA has 38. The only difference is that here, a JxC and LLA coalition can command a simple majority.

This leaves Milei at the mercy first of the conservatives, who would welcome market-oriented reforms and a departure from socialism, but by their very nature would be reluctant to endorse Milei’s more radical, disruptive proposals. Once Milei has cleared that hurdle, he needs to gather a majority in the upper house, which will be even harder.

Argentina is also heavily indebted, including to the International Monetary Fund, and creditors are likely to have a say in how the country is run. Anything that scares them will raise the cost of credit, which Argentina can ill afford.

Wait and see

Once the initial euphoria of seeing a true libertarian in power has cleared, then, we are left with the sobering realisation that Milei may not be able to achieve anywhere near as much as he has promised.

Turning failing countries around is not for the faint-hearted, and it always comes with social upheaval and economic pain.

Even if Milei gets the good ship Argentina pointed in the right direction again, the prevailing winds and currents may still dash it – and its captain – upon the rocks.

Read also:

*Ivo Vegter is a freelance journalist, columnist and speaker who loves debunking myths and misconceptions, and addresses topics from the perspective of individual liberty and free markets.

This article was first published by Daily Friend and is republished with permission

Visited 57 times, 57 visit(s) today

How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

suspended 366 decrees to ease economic controls and reduce spending.

Unlike his predecessors, Milei has faced immediate resistance from labor unions and entrenched political factions, with protests highlighting the polarization and challenges in implementing his radical agenda.

Who has opposed Milei's proposed layoff order?

Milei’s market-oriented strategies, including dollarization and drastic fiscal adjustments, aim to stabilize the economy but risk exacerbating poverty and inequality in the short term.

Title:

Content: Argentine President Javier Melea FP
In his first speech...
Argentina's new president warns of economic shock
Libertarian economist Javier Milley took office in Argentina on Sunday, warning in his first speech that he had no choice but to commit to a sharp and painful fiscal path to fix the country ’ s worst economic crisis in decades, with inflation heading towards 200 percent.
The president told Congress immediately after taking office: “There is no alternative to a shocking amendment, there is no money. ”
Milley, 53, took over from Peruvian leader Alberto Fernandez, whose government has been unable to stop rising prices.
Milley, a former television analyst who has become famous for his rhetoric against his opponents, China and the Pope, said: “The outgoing government has left us on the road to hyperinflation, and we will do everything we can to avoid such a catastrophe. ”
Although the letter did not include any details, Milley added that "the main steps will include a fiscal adjustment of about 5% of the country's GDP through the introduction of cuts that will be borne by the state and not the private sector."
Zelensky to visit Argentina in bid to win support from global South
Milley ’ s aggressive spending cuts have been well received by investors, who say it could stabilise a struggling economy but risks pushing more people into financial hardship, with more than two fifths already living in poverty.
Argentina ’ s net foreign currency reserves are estimated at $10 billion, and annual inflation has reached 143 percent and is on the rise.
Recession became imminent in the country, and capital controls caused exchange rates to be uncontrolled.
In his speech, Milley warned that “inflation could reach 15,000 percent a year if it is not reined in, ” vowing to“ fight as hard as I can ” to control it.
He also warned of a $100 billion debt “bomb. ”
Argentina, a major grain exporter, needs to renew a $44 billion non-performing loan program with the International Monetary Fund, while Milley needs to improve relations with trading partners China and Brazil, whom he criticized during his election campaign.
Most Read
No stories found.
Erm News
www.eremnews.com

The long-term effects of his policies may include institutional challenges, as his reliance on emergency decrees risks undermining democratic norms and creating political instability.

Milei’s reforms have reshaped the relationship between Argentina’s federal government and provincial authorities, significantly reducing state transfers and consolidating ministries, which has strained provincial budgets and sparked protests.

Provincial governments have declared economic emergencies and implemented contingency plans in response to reduced federal support, highlighting the broader impact of Milei’s neoliberal restructuring on local economies.

Title:

Content: MercoPress, en Español

Montevideo, December 16th 2023 - 14:34 UTC

Argentina: Milei says burden on private sector is “transitory”

Saturday, December 16th 2023 - 10:05 UTC
Full article 0 comments

Argentine President Javier Milei Friday released a live broadcast through his Instagram account explaining that “The effort that falls on the private sector is transitory.” The head of state added his administration was “focused on avoiding hyperinflation.”

Milei, an economist by trade, also explained that a “hyper-orthodox adjustment with a sincere exchange market and restructuring of the Central Bank” was being implemented in order to curb the rise in prices through ”a sincere [currency] exchange market and [the]restructuring of the Central Bank (BCRA).“

He added that although the ”effort“ currently weighed ”60% on politicians“ and ”40% on the private sector,“ this situation would be ”transitory“ while pledging that this path would lead to closing ”the gap of the import exchange rate plus the PAIS tax“ and, with this, it will ”lower the country risk.“

Once the economy is rearranged, the government will begin to ”eliminate the things that we libertarian liberals do not like,“ the President went on.

”Never the night could beat the day; let's not curse the darkness. Argentina is starting to wake up and stand up,” he stressed.

The Argentine President will convene next Tuesday with all provincial governors to address the impact of the most recent measures on local economies.

Santiago del Estero declared an economic emergency and San Luis announced a contingency plan whereby public workers are to be paid their wages in installments.

In addition, the agriculturally-rich provinces of Córdoba, Santa Fe, and Entre Ríos have expressed their concerns over the increase in export duties.

The following provinces have already announced spending cuts in line with the national government's announcements: Santiago del Estero, San Luis, Córdoba, Tucumán, Santa Fe, Catamarca, Tierra del Fuego, Chubut, San Juan, Neuquén, Entre Ríos, and Santa Cruz.

Interior Minister Guillermo Francos was reported Friday to be coordinating Tuesday's gathering.

Categories: Economy, Politics, Argentina.
Tags: Javier Milei.

Milei’s dramatic rhetoric and symbolic gestures, such as wielding a chainsaw at rallies, have been instrumental in galvanizing public support for his libertarian agenda.

He has strategically used mass media and social platforms to amplify his anti-establishment messaging, resonating with a populace disillusioned by decades of economic mismanagement and political corruption.

Milei’s labor market reforms, including deregulating labor laws and reducing worker protections, have sparked widespread protests and union strikes against perceived threats to labor rights.

How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

Who has opposed Milei's proposed layoff order?

The austerity measures and privatization plans have led to increased unemployment, with over 50,000 jobs lost due to government cuts and layoffs.

How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

Milei’s governance approach, characterized by the use of emergency decrees, has concentrated legislative powers in the executive branch, raising concerns about the erosion of democratic processes.

His administration has faced accusations of authoritarian tendencies, with threats to govern by plebiscite if Congress resists his agenda, further fueling fears of undermining democratic accountability.

Milei’s policies have reshaped Argentina’s international reputation, aligning the country more closely with Western alliances while distancing it from China and Brazil.

Title:

Content: Argentina ’ s anti-communist president on stage, China-style financial aid diplomacy fizzled
* Arthur Louis
On November 29, 2023, Argentina ’ s elections revealed a political earthquake, with right-wing liberal economist Javier Milei winning the presidency with more than half the votes.
The newly elected right-wing president, Mirei, could pose a major challenge to China ’ s economic and diplomatic programs.
This article will explore the new leader ’ s words and actions, and the likely impact of this political shift on China.
Argentina ’ s new president, Javier Milei, threatened to freeze relations with China during his election campaign, insisting he would not deal with the Communist Party. (Reuters)
The Right-Wing President ’ s Tough Stand
The new president, Mirei, has shown a strong anti-communist and anti-socialist stance in his campaign, which is far from the ideology of the CCP.
During the campaign, he made clear his support for Ukraine in international affairs and declared that the United States and Israel were Argentina ’ s main partners.
Such a political stance would challenge China ’ s influence in Argentina.
The impact of economic reform on China
Mirei ’ s proposed economic reforms, in particular the abolition of the peso currency in favor of the US dollar, could severely undermine China ’ s economic influence in Argentina.
The RMB 130 billion currency swap agreement between China and Argentina is at risk of failure, which means that China could lose an important economic partner and also trigger foreign exchange losses.
Chinese Aid Diplomacy Failed
The author has three arguments that Chinese-style financial aid diplomacy will be defeated with the election of Mirei:
1.
Political inconsistencies: New President Mirei ’ s clear opposition to communism and socialism puts China ’ s foreign policy in Argentina at significant risk. Differences in political positions will hamper previously close bilateral cooperation.
2 Possible disclosure of corruption: The new government may uncover corrupt practices conspired by old government officials and Chinese officials, which could put the CCP under moral pressure internationally and influence external interactions.
3.
Tear up the BRI: The new government risks tearing up the agreement, further weakening the CCP ’ s geopolitical influence in Argentina.
Conclusion
The election of Argentina ’ s right-wing president poses a serious challenge to China ’ s economic and diplomatic strategy.
Differences in political positions, the impact of economic reform, and the risk of a diplomatic deal all threaten to deprive the CCP of a reliable diplomatic partner in this change.
Chinese-style financial aid diplomacy may face a crushing defeat in Argentina ’ s election, forcing Beijing to reassess its diplomatic strategy in Latin America.
(Chinese researchers)
Free Speech is an electronic forum that provides public dialogue. Whether it is political, economic, social, cultural and other news issues, you are welcome to express your opinions and express your opinions.
Please do not submit more than one manuscript, the length of the text is 700 words, please attach the real name (must be written).
Please note that you have a pen name, occupation, contact number, e-mail account.
This report has the right to accept and delete the right, no remuneration for the draft; the acceptance or non-acceptance will be without notice.
Submission mailbox: LTNTALK @ gmail.com
No need to smoke, no need to grab, now use the APP to watch the news, guarantee the daily winning point I download the APP
I've added friends, thank you.
Welcome to [Free Commentary]
It's a compliment. Good.
It has been praised, thank you.
Related News
Editor 's Choice

What are some of the "liberal democracies" that the Milei administration prioritizes partnerships?

Historical precedents for Milei’s policies include Argentina’s Convertibility Plan in the 1990s, which reduced inflation but also increased unemployment and social stratification, highlighting the risks of similar measures today.

Title:

Content: Overview:

Argentina's latest presidential election offers plenty of sensational fodder for the presses. But there's a deeper issue here, a politics of desperation, that we would do well to watch as it rises in the world.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

On November 19, Argentina elected Javier Milei as its next president, to take office this December. His politics have been compared to those of Donald Trump (in his showmanship) and Jair Bolsonaro (in his rightwing extremism and denialism), but his ideas go further than both. Milei calls himself an anarcho-capitalist (a form of libertarian), whose stated aims are “blowing up” the central bank, changing the Argentinian peso for the dollar, permitting the private sale of human organs, and closing ministries for education, health, women, and culture while slashing welfare payments.

Milei has also been called a “minarchist” for his minimal-government belief that the state’s only purpose is to protect citizens’ rights to free action. To this end, proposed bans on abortion and loosened gun laws run in lockstep with his acceptance of trans identities and desire to legalize more drugs. He denies the scale of Argentina’s brutal history of state terror in 1976 to 1983, and when he first rose in the polls, there was a panicked rush among citizens to change their pesos for dollars, fearing economic disaster.

So why did he win?

And not just by a hair, but with 56% of the vote against his runoff opponent, Sergei Massa?

The historical underpinnings run deep, but human behavior in response to the current economic moment is also not complex. Urban poverty hit 40.1% in 2023, as inflation reached 50.7% earlier this year. When the official exchange rate was devalued by 22% the day after the primaries (in which Milei’s popularity caused panic), it caused a 12.4% inflation spike. This is in an enconomy where some 48.1% are informally or self-employed, and thus without salaried protections against the greatest financial hits.

An outsider expecting rational economic actors might assume that if Milei’s presence in the polls only destabilized an already precarious situation, surely humans would avoid voting for him again. But the logic of longstanding financial stress runs deeper than traditional economic configurations of the “rational actor”: when there is no confidence in existing state structures, perhaps it is best to pull off the bandaid quickly. The immediate pain will be hard, but maybe, just maybe, the destruction of the old order will bring about something new.

This is the politics of desperation and disillusionment.

The world would do well to pay attention to its rise.

Argentinian histories of low confidence in the state

There’s a famous, apocryphal, and above all cruel expression in economics: “There have only been four types of economies in the world: advanced, developing, Japan, and Argentina.” The point driven at here is that Japan seemed to rise from the ashes, with everything working against it, after World War II and even now with an aging workforce. Meanwhile Argentina, a country with a natural bounty, seemed to destroy confidence in itself at every turn.

This is a cruel expression for a few reasons: one being that Argentina is not alone even in South America, as a country with great internal resources that has struggled to turn its holdings into wealth for its citizens. Another reason is the why. While Japan recovered from WWII by growing a commercial empire through top-down industrial relationships with surrounding countries, Argentina under labor-nationalist Juan Domingo Perón had the audacity in the 1950s to try to nationalize its British-owned railways. This choice met with swift reprisal from Western powers, thereafter unwilling to invest. Before World War II, Argentina had relied heavily on military rule. After inflation spiked and labor strikes surged as global investors pulled out, it was back to decades of fraught authoritarianism.

One of the worst coups started with a 600 percent inflation surge in 1976. That seven-year period yielded up to 30,000 disappeared human beings during the state’s “Dirty War” against leftists, and ended only after the military attempted to take the Falkland Islands from the British. This failure would yield the modern democratic state, but with a low opinion of both the military and the bureaucracy. In 1989, ahead of a massive inflation crisis of up to 4,900 percent, only 30,000 out of 30 million citizens were paying income taxes.

Now, inflation can address domestic debt, but Argentina’s massive fiscal deficit was informed centrally by external debt, in dollars to the rest of the world. During the banking crisis of 1990, banks forced client deposits into bonds under the BONEX Plan, essentially taking citizens’ savings from them with a promise that their investment in the future of the country would pay off. Citizens were not happy about this, of course.

The government then introduced the Convertibility Plan in 1991, which tried to peg the Argentinian peso to the US dollar at a 1:1 rate. This process involved Argentina embracing US neoliberal state policies: relaxing labor protections, massively privatizing industries, and otherwise bringing the world back into Argentinian markets. Did the plan reduce inflation? Yes. It also raised unemployment, reduced wages, and stratified class outcomes. And it led to more austerity measures over time, because the government’s debt kept rising, forcing more of the annual budget into “debt servicing” to other countries.

Being open to world markets also meant being more vulnerable to their downturns, such as a major wobble in 2001, which sparked labor collapse and food riots in Argentina despite its local wealth of grain and beef. The peso was unpegged in 2002, after the government had restricted bank withdrawals to keep citizens from “financial flight” into other currencies and markets. Once the peso was floating freely, though, people panicked anyway. After years of seeing the dollar as the more valuable and stable currency, they rushed to exchange their holdings (which were now all in pesos) back into US dollars by other means. That rush caused another inflationary spike.

Argentina underwent two major debt restructuring deals in that decade, but they just created more problems. A deal in 2001 allowed Argentina to pay interest only to those who had opted in to the restructuring plan, and the exclusion of “holdouts” was reasserted after 2010, when the debt plan was agreed upon by 93% of bondholders. The remaining 7% weren’t having this, though: a few hedge fund creditors sued the Argentinian government for breach of a principle of equal treatment for bondholders, pari passu. The South District Court of New York agreed with them, and even though Argentina tried to continue paying its “holdin” creditors, as per the debt restructuring plan, those payments were not permitted until Argentina paid the holdouts, too, in compliance with the court’s rulings.

Argentina was forced into a massive default in 2014. And again in 2020. And this year, analysts believe it’s on track for another soon.

Why? Because Argentina’s banking system isn’t an independent force. It is yoked to a highly litigious set of international players, and vulnerable to every global market crash as well.

Seen this way, why wouldn’t the average Argentinian want to bring it down?

Dollarization and other flawed promises

The complex problem for Argentinians voting out of desperation is twofold:

For one, as much as they might associate the days of the dollar with a period of relative stability, it was never a simple matter of pegging one currency to another. The arrangement expressly came with Argentina’s willingness to embrace neoliberal policies that yielded stark divides in civilian life and other market outcomes. For Milei to “dollarize” the country now would require a similar willingness to play ball with international institutions and their policy demands. The moment the peso is eliminated, by being exchanged in its entirety for dollars, Argentina cedes a great deal of financial policy to external players.

And yet, that is precisely the issue currently plaguing Argentina’s banks.

But also, not just Argentina, despite the glibness of the apocryphal economics saying.

The problems of our global financial system are serious enough that they will require a much more holistic reckoning with the consequences of fifty years of neoliberal policy. In July, a UN joint commission released “Soaring Debt Threatens Global Prosperity”, a report that highlights the staggering rates of debt servicing endured by 40% of the developing world. If these debts were simply between states, that would be one matter, more easily resolved; but the hyper-privatized yet undertaxed nature of our global economy has the vast majority of these countries forced into austerity measures to pay off complex debts to groups like the hedge fund creditors who pushed Argentina into default in 2014.

In other words, this will keep happening until we develop policies that can offset the private-investment predation currently facing many countries in precarity.

The second problem is one that Colombia also experienced this past year, when many on both the left (with excitement) and the right (with trepidation) expected the first leftist president to bring about dramatic reforms: Milei is just one person in his government. Just as Gustavo Petro found himself embroiled in parliamentary quarrels between competing groups, so too does Milei’s victory not come with the resounding legislative presence needed to steamroll all his grand plans into operation. He, too, is going to have to negotiate.

In practice, this means that Argentinians currently thrilled by the possibility of change are again going to meet with disillusionment. Either Milei will pull off his dollarization, and they will learn that this move makes the country no less vulnerable to global shocks and creditors, or he won’t, and amid his interim achievement of “easier” goals (e.g., the demolition of whole ministries), Argentinians will experience socioeconomic shocks that again bring them to the streets in protest… or else to live, having nowhere else to go.

GLOBAL HUMANIST SHOPTALK M L Clark is a Canadian writer by birth, now based in Medellín, Colombia, who publishes speculative fiction and humanist essays with a focus on imagining a more just world.

How will Milei's reforms impact workers?

What economic issue did Milei want to address?

Business leaders have shown cautious support for Milei’s economic reforms, particularly his reduction of government ministries and subsidies, as these align with market-oriented strategies.

Title:

Content: Russian Federation
Moscow
+ 2 °
Worldwide19 December 2023 10: 39
How Javier Miley treats Argentina with shock therapy: his reforms were compared to poison
During the first week in power, he sharply raised gasoline prices, devalued the peso and canceled preferential travel in public transport.
Javier Miley
Photo: REUTERS
The new Argentine president, Javier Miley, began his career.
Only a week has passed since his inauguration, and he has already announced so many reforms that another head of state would have been enough for a whole year.
However, this is not surprising, because even during the election campaign, he promised to conduct shock therapy in the country, and, having taken office, said that before the patient (in the sense of the Argentine economy) will get much better, he must get much worse.
Local wit assure that Miley gives the country poison in a narrow and high glass - so that it can be drunk only in small sips.
I mean, the hardest times are yet to come.
TIME OF HONEST PRICES
First of all, the new government reduced subsidies for public transport and electricity.
The economy minister said the tariffs had been “artificially lowered ” until now, and now it was time for fair prices.
Miley added that the previous authorities allegedly deceived citizens for preferential travel in public transport had to pay wild inflation.
Argentinian motorists, however, are also not happy now.
Gasoline prices have risen twice since the beginning of December: the first time by 15%, and then another 37%.
In addition, the government of Miley went on a serious devaluation of the national currency and halved the official exchange rate of the peso against the dollar.
However, the US currency can still be bought only on the black market (and at an even higher rate).
The reduction in the number of government officials was one of the main points of Miley ’ s election program and the reduction in the number of federal ministries from 19 to 9 is generally welcomed by the population.
Rather, it is about their consolidation.
Thus, culture, education, social and labor policy will now be concentrated in one ministry of human capital.
Called the police?
But the refusal to index pensions and fund public works caused serious outrage among a significant part of the population.
In particular, a sharp protest was expressed by the largest trade unions in Argentina.
Disgruntled voters are already preparing for the first protest against Miley ’ s policies.
Mass actions will be held in Buenos Aires today, December 20.
But even here, the head of state, nicknamed “El Loko ” in the press (that is, the Mad Man), prepared a number of surprises for his subjects.
He said that he had developed a new protocol to combat demonstrations.
Protesters will now be identified by “video, digital or manual surveillance ” and then billed for sending security forces to protect the order.
In other words, you can not only get under the batons of law enforcement officers, but also pay them overtime.
One thing is clear: Javier Miley needs money first, preferably in hard currency.
The comment of one of the representatives of the US presidential administration Joe Biden is indicative here.
After Miley ’ s meeting with the American leader, the White House said it was ready to help Argentina “with the development of lithium mining. ”
In general, it looks like one of the strategic sectors of the Argentine economy (and lithium is called one of the main resources of the 21st century), Javier ’ s senior comrades have already laid a paw.
It also announced the upcoming privatization of the national railway network of Argentina, as well as the sale of two aircraft, which flew representatives of the former government.
NEIGHBOURS ARE WARNING
Interestingly, Javier Miley has become a white crow (or black sheep) among the other leaders of South America, where the socialists have won recently.
And although El Loko has chosen not to quarrel with its neighbors so far, some of them have already expressed their attitude to the victory of the pro-American anarcho-capitalist in Argentina.
- Sad news for Latin America, - lamented the President of Colombia Gustavo Petro. - Neoliberals have nothing to offer society and can not answer the pressing problems of mankind.
With even sharper criticism, Miley was attacked by his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro.
“He is a representative of the far-right forces that are proposing a colonial project for Argentina, and even intend to spread it throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, ” Maduro said. – We are not going to remain silent, because the coming to power of a right-wing extremist, subordinated to North American imperialism and seeking to end the state and social rights is a huge threat.
SPIRITUAL CASES
On the eve of taking office, he converted to Judaism.
According to the Argentine newspaper La Razón, two weeks before his inauguration, Miley attended a Jewish service in Buenos Aires and received a blessing from the rabbi to accept the new faith.
Thus, the 53-year-old Argentinian converted from Catholicism to Judaism.
Two days later, Miley flew to New York, where he visited the grave of the famous Jewish rabbi Menachem Mendl Schneerson.
The publication notes that taking into account the residence in Argentina of the largest Jewish community in Latin America [about 220 thousand people – approx.
The newly elected head of state openly demonstrates how committed he is to “deepening cultural and political ties with Israel. ”
In addition, following the example of Trump, Miley has repeatedly promised that he will move the Argentine embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which other countries do not do because of the unclear status of East Jerusalem (it is also claimed by the Palestinian autonomy).
PHOTOS IN SUBJECT
Caputo to you all!
Santiago Caputo Photo: screenshot
This image shows Santiago Caputo, a political adviser to Javier Miley and, according to some local media, the “gray cardinal ” of his team.
Particular attention is drawn to the tattoo on his right hand, where in pure Russian (albeit with spelling errors) it is written literally the following: "Hut, cottage and savings book, boat, car and garage will calm my blazh."
And below is a specific star, which in Russia is associated with the criminal subculture of thieves in law.
It is known that Caputo ’ s proverb was gleaned from the book “Encyclopedia of Russian Criminal Tattoos ”, which one of his friends gave him for some reason.
But what attracted the thieves romance of such a respected person and whether he lives “according to concepts ” is still a mystery behind seven seals.
READ ALSO
The new President of Argentina gave back: Javier Miley refuses odious promises
The president with a chainsaw tempered the ardor (more)