Chainsaw Politics
Listen to Today's Edition:
Students, workers from all sectors, LGBTQ folks, pensioners and women have all marched in the streets of the Argentine capital Buenos Aires this year to protest President Javier Milei’s conservative policies, including cuts to universities, suppression of wages and pension hikes, and the abolition of ministries that focused on women and discrimination, xenophobia, and racism, as World Politics Review wrote.
In late October, for example, Argentina’s largest public-sector union held a 36-hour strike, protesting in Buenos Aires to demand better wages, wrote the Spanish newswire, EFE.
The protests are the new norm in Argentina since Milei won office in November 2023 and inherited an economic disaster. A populist and anarcho-capitalist who vowed to take a chainsaw to the country’s socialistic government bureaucracy, which he says has long hampered the South American country’s economy and geopolitical power, he is making good on his promises.
Railing against career politicians, labor activists, journalists, celebrities, academics, corporate leaders and banks as “miserable rats,” “dirty asses,” “degenerate prosecutors,” and “filthy leftists,” he has cut the country’s deficit by a whopping 30 percent in that year since he won office, El País explained.
He has also reduced inflation, where inflation in the triple digits has been the norm, and made other welcome market-friendly economic changes, added the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.
But as the annual inflation rate dropped from the forecasted 300 percent in April to 123 percent by the end of the year, the poverty rate rose from 42 percent to almost 60 percent, the highest rate since 2023, when the country was reeling from a catastrophic foreign debt default and currency devaluation, the Associated Press wrote.
As a result, this has caused desperation, with many ordinary Argentinians struggling to eat: “We are feeling it in the fridge, empty and unplugged,” María Claudia Albornoz, a community worker in the country, told the Guardian. “Money is really worth absolutely nothing. We have three jobs and it is not enough.”
Meanwhile, his political shifts have been noteworthy, too. Contrary to many leftist South American leaders who portray American influence in the region as negative, Milei recently sacked his foreign affairs minister, for example, for voting in favor of lifting the US embargo of Cuba in a United Nations General Assembly vote.
“The country is going through a period of profound changes and this new stage requires that our diplomatic corps reflect in each decision the values of freedom, sovereignty and individual rights that characterize Western democracies,” said Milei.
The new foreign minister, Geraldo Werthein, is a Jewish businessman and former ambassador to the US who notably swore his oath with one hand on the Torah, reported the Jewish News Agency. Importantly, only Israel joined the US in voting to reaffirm the Cuban embargo.
As the strikes and protests suggest, Milei has alienated many of his constituents. Whether he can continue to make reforms might depend on how he deals with other challenges on the horizon.
American and European investors, for example, have been battling Argentina to pay them for years. As the Financial Times wrote, court decisions in these cases are coming due. If Milei is ordered to pay billions, as many expect, he might need to hit pause on his plans until he can pay the country’s bills.
It’s a race to see whether the outsider can win – for better or for worse, say analysts.
While reforms are on track, and Argentina achieved its first budget surplus in two decades, the forecast is for the country to go into recession – one Milei hopes is short-lived – but which economists believe won’t be, pushing even more people into poverty and desperation – and possibly energizing the center-left to block Milei’s programs.
Right now, Argentina is currently “teetering on the edge of a cliff,” Benjamin Gedan, the director of the Latin America Program at the Wilson Center, told Foreign Policy.
“Most people agree that … everything is either going to collapse or, somehow, (Milei is) going to survive politically long enough to show the benefits of his policies,” Gedan said. “But just sputtering along on the verge of a crisis doesn’t seem to be possible anymore.”
Subscribe today and GlobalPost will be in your inbox the next weekday morning
Join us today and pay only $32.95 for an annual subscription, or less than $3 a month for our unique insights into crucial developments on the world stage. It’s by far the best investment you can make to expand your knowledge of the world.