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... Milei declared that Argentina’s “alignment is with the United States and Israel,” and that he was not “going to ally with communists.” And lo and behold, when given the chance to join BRICS, President Milei rejected it.
Last year, I urged President Biden to support his recently elected counterpart in Argentina by encouraging the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to restructure Buenos Aires’s debt. (The IMF just agreed to release $4.7 billion for this purpose, which is promising.) ...
...www.wsj.com/world/americas/argentinas-president-....
Argentine President Javier Milei achieved a significant milestone on Friday after the lower house of Congress approved his sweeping free market reform package, clearing one of the biggest hurdles on his path.
After three days of heated debate and amidst opposition pressure to thwart the entire reform package, the lower chamber of deputies approved the controversial legislation with a vote of 144 in favor and 109 against. After a short recess, lawmakers are expected to vote on the legislation article by article, beginning on February 6.
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Holding just 28 of the chamber's 257 seats, Milei's party, La Libertad Avanza, was able to gain enough support to pass the bill only by dropping a number of key measures. About half of the changes in the original bill survived. Several fiscal measures were dropped, including tax increases on exports—one can dispute whether those qualify as a free market reform—and modifications to the pension system.
Milei's government also agreed to reduce the number of state-run companies it promised to privatize. Originally aiming to jettison 41 state-owned companies—including the flagship airline, Aerolíneas Argentinas; the country's largest bank, Banco de la Nación; and the news agency Télam—the revised bill now targets 27 companies. Notably, the oil company YPF and the national mint will remain state-owned, while other entities will undergo partial privatization.
While the bill was being debated, protesters gathered outside Congress in opposition to Milei's reforms. The protests led to clashes with riot police, as protesters threw rocks at the neoclassical building and the police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. More than 20 journalists were injured by projectiles, and at least eight demonstrators were arrested. Seven police officers were also injured, according to government sources.
After the vote, Milei said that the opposition leaders who supported his reforms "understood the historical context and chose to end the privileges of the caste and the corporate republic, in favor of the people, who have been impoverished and are hungry."
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The approval of the omnibus bill and the IMF disbursement are good news for Milei's administration. But it is still too early to celebrate. The omnibus bill will now have to clear its next obstacle: its approval in the Senate, where Milei's party has only 10 percent of the seats.
... in Argentina’s opposition-controlled congress where the government failed to garner the necessary legislative support for its cornerstone reform bill.
“The zero deficit is non-negotiable,” Milei said in his first interview after a trip abroad to Israel and Italy. “Cleaning up the central bank’s balance sheet is non-negotiable.”
Milei said he withdrew his sweeping omnibus bill because he’d prefer no reform at all over implementing bad reforms. He said that the International Monetary Fund expects currency controls to be eliminated by the second half of the year and that he maintains dollarization as his goal. The government will cut the deficit by five percentage points, he said, without giving a timeline for that objective.
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Argentine President Javier Milei said on Thursday he will propose a bill to penalize the central bank from financing the nation's treasury.
Milei, speaking in an interview with local news broadcaster TN, said he would look to stop the monetary authority from printing more bills in a bid to rein in inflation, which currently tops 200% annually.
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The Argentine President, Javier Milei, has received U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, in Buenos Aires on Friday to deepen ties and increase trade between the two countries, according to the latter in a press conference at the Casa Rosada, the presidential residence. ...
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“The people of Argentina can count on us as they work to stabilise their economy,” Blinken said. “We see extraordinary opportunity here in Argentina, but maybe most important, what’s so evident is that Argentina has what the world actually needs,” he said, referring to minerals used in batteries needed for the transition to renewable energy.
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Argentina's monthly inflation reading likely slowed to 15.3% in February, still painfully high but down sharply from a peak in December, as new libertarian President Javier Milei's austerity drive squeezes shoppers, helping rein in grocery price rises.
The forecast, the median from a Reuters poll of 13 analysts published on Friday, would mark a deceleration from over 20% in January and 25% the month before when Milei took office and sharply devalued the peso currency.
Milei's government, battling the highest inflation rate of any major economy worldwide with annual price rises running at over 250%, is trying to stem the flood with a major cost-cutting drive and tight monetary policy to mop up pesos.
That has helped strengthen the currency, put the brakes on prices and buoyed markets that are keen on Milei's pledge to overturn a deep fiscal deficit. But it has come at the cost of growth, with stalling consumption and production.
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Argentina's peso on the parallel informal market strengthened more than 1.5% against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday, breaking back below the 1,000 per dollar mark and reaching its strongest level since the end of December.
The surge comes after President Javier Milei announced on Friday he would not back down from pushing his libertarian pro-market agenda and called on lawmakers and governors to get behind his austerity drive to overturn a deep fiscal deficit.
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President Javier Milei has set his sights on Argentina's largest state-owned news agency, vowing to shutter it for being "a covert propaganda ministry." The move unfolded as police fenced off the agency's offices in Buenos Aires and prevented workers from entering since midnight on Monday.
During a speech at the opening of the Argentinian Congress' 142 session last Friday, Milei announced the closure of Telenoticiosa Americana (Télam), alleging that the agency has served as "a Kirchnerist propaganda agency for the last decades," referring to former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. "It is immoral that in a poor country like ours," Milei said, "the government spends the people's money to buy the will of journalists."
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Argentines have deposited more than $2.3 billion into dollar-denominated local bank accounts since President Javier Milei took office Dec. 10, reflecting incipient optimism about his government.
The nearly 17% jump to $16.4 billion means dollar deposits in Milei’s first three months have completely recovered their losses over the past year, according to central bank data. The greenbacks Argentines keep in the financial system are an informal barometer of political risk as citizens tend to withdraw money during periods of volatility and deposit savings in more stable times.
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Argentine stocks surged in Tuesday’s session following lower-than-predicted February inflation figures and an unexpected move by the central bank, which slashed interest rates by 20 percentage points down to 80% a day earlier.
The Global X MSCI Argentine ETF (NYSE:ARGT), which tracks the performance of an index of Argentine stocks, closed 1.3% higher, snapping a three-day losing streak.
Government data published on Tuesday revealed that in February, consumer prices experienced a 13.2% rise from the preceding month, which was lower than the 15% gain anticipated by economists.
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“We are going to return to respecting the zero deficit in February, despite a drop in revenue. We have continued with the plan of the chainsaw and the blender; the decrease in public spending is 36%. We won’t give up even a millimeter,” Milei stated.
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Central Bank President Santiago Bausili highlighted that “a pronounced slowdown in inflation is observed,” despite the strong statistical drag that inflation brings to its monthly averages.
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Caputo stated Tuesday at the AmCham Summit 2024 in Buenos Aires that lowering inflation is the government’s primary objective.
He also remarked on Milei’s ongoing pursuit of a “competition of currencies,” envisioning the inclusion of the U.S. dollar as legal tender.
He highlighted that the currency competition scheme aims to swiftly collapse inflation. This came after he celebrated the government’s fiscal outcome.
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Bitcoin is rising in Argentina as an alternative to the U.S. dollar to cope with the inflation levels in the country’s economy. Numbers offered by Lemon, one of the largest local exchanges in Argentina, indicate that bitcoin purchases have risen to a 20-month high, reaching almost 35,000 transactions in the week ending March 20.
... This bitcoin rush has been seen as unusual by analysts, as Argentines have relied on the U.S. dollar to cope with the deteriorating conditions of their economy.
While other countries in Latam have been more open to using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as investment tools, Argentina has been different. A report by Lemon issued in February found that 80% of all crypto purchases in Argentina in 2023 corresponded to stablecoins and that 70% of the deposits processed in 2023 involved Tether’s USDT, the largest dollar-pegged stablecoin in the crypto market.
However, this behavior is not limited to Lemon, as Belo, another local wallet, has reported purchase volumes of ether and bitcoin rising tenfold compared to last year’s same period. Belo CEO Manuel Beaudroit said that the bitcoin bull rally has also made stablecoins’ popularity take a hit.
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This rush to bitcoin and stablecoins might be related to the relatively strong performance of the Argentine peso versus the greenback. The economic policies of President Javier Milei have reined in the dollar value as he has blocked money printing and is rebuilding the greenback reserves of the central bank.
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