It’s been six weeks since President Javier Milei took office in Argentina, and since then gas prices have doubled, inflation has soared and the value of the national currency has plummeted.
Such unrest, he had warned, was predictable. Solving decades of economic problems would first require more pain, she said.
Yet on Wednesday many Argentines intend to take to the streets to demonstrate that they have already had enough.
Argentina’s largest unions plan a nationwide strike – including workers in transportation, construction, healthcare, food services, energy and banking – to protest Milei’s planned reforms, arguing that they would weaken protections for workers and the poor. More than 100,000 people are expected to demonstrate across the country.
Pablo Moyano, a union leader, told reporters that Mr. Milei “is shitting on Congress and shitting on workers.” Milei countered that the protest shows that “there are two Argentines” – one stuck in the past and another who “puts us on the path to becoming a developed country.”
However, many Argentines seem to agree with Milei. Despite the economic chaos, Mr. Milei’s approval ratings have remained high, or even risen along with prices. Recent polls show that 58% of Argentines support him, two percentage points higher than his share of November’s presidential vote.
In response, Milei, a libertarian economist and TV pundit who has presented a brash political style to the presidency, sought to take advantage of his political honeymoon by quickly overhauling as much of Argentina as possible.
After cutting spending, firing public employees and devaluing the currency, he turned his attention to radical legislation that would have consequences for the economy, elections, jobs, public safety, the environment, the arts, science , on the health and even on the divorce of Argentines. . The omnibus bill would also consolidate more power in his hands.
This sparked a labor backlash. Unions have already won a preliminary injunction this month against some of Milei’s attempts to change labor laws by presidential decree, and now aim to flex their power with massive demonstrations on Wednesday.
The workers’ revolts did it they have derailed government campaigns to bring about meaningful change in Argentina first, but Milei is signaling he will take a tougher stance against protests that become disruptive. She has proposed reducing the pay of public workers who take part in demonstrations and increasing fines against people who block roads so they could risk prison.
He also moved quickly. In his first days on the job, Milei made deep cuts in federal spending, fired thousands of civil servants and kept the number of federal ministries from 18 to nine. He also officially devalued the Argentine peso by more than 50%, bringing the government exchange rate much closer to the size of the market currency, but also making prices dream.
From November to December, prices increased by 25.5%, compared to 12.8% in the previous month.
Argentina’s annual inflation rate is now at 211%, which puts the nation of 46 million people roughly on par with Lebanon for the world’s highest inflation. Argentina’s prices are rising faster than those in Venezuela, where years of economic collapse had led many Venezuelans to emigrate to Argentina. Now some are having second thoughts.
“I see a lot of Venezuelans leaving the country,” said Andreina Di Giovanni, 35, a Venezuelan immigrant in Buenos Aires who owns a shop selling Venezuelan food. “Some are migrating elsewhere; “some will return to Venezuela.”
He said his business is struggling, with sales falling and costs rising, but he said it was too early to blame the new president.
Mr. Milei hopes that many Argentines are willing to give him a long leash to solve the country’s long-standing economic problems, and for now some are going along.
Stella Body, 70, said she is technically retired but continues to work full time as a cosmetologist to afford the rising prices. For her it was a worthy sacrifice for Mr. Milei’s plan. “We won’t see positive results for at least a year,” she said. “You can’t fix anything in a month.”
Milei is also attracting support from conservatives abroad. Last week she gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which she argued that unfettered capitalism is the only model for reducing poverty and that socialism, feminism and environmentalism threaten global progress pushing government regulation.
“You are heroes,” he told the Davos audience. “You are the architects of the most extraordinary period of prosperity we have ever seen.”
The speech went viral, promoted by various conservative and right-wing voices as a clear distillation of what is wrong with modern society.
“Good explanation of what makes countries more or less prosperous,” Elon Musk said as he shared a video of the speech. Later, the billionaire posted a doctored image of a man watching Mr Milei’s speech while having sex, a post viewed 113 million times.
A Brazilian politician later published it she played the speech for her unborn child in the womb, and Donald J. Trump spoke on his Truth Social platform, said that Mr. Milei was “MAKING GREAT PROGRESS” in his effort to “MAKE ARGENTINA GREAT AGAIN!”
The International Monetary Fund, which is owed the bulk of Argentina’s $44 billion loan program, also praised Milei, saying he and his economic team moved quickly to “rebuild reserves, correct relative price misalignments, strengthen the central bank’s balance sheet and create a simpler, rules-based and market-oriented economy.”
At the heart of Milei’s efforts to address the country’s chronic financial problems is the omnibus bill he is trying to pass through Argentina’s Congress.
With more than 500 provisions, the legislation would reduce regulations, weaken unions, privatize most state-owned companies, eliminate primary elections, raise export taxes and eliminate some environmental protections. The bill would also give Mr. Milei emergency powers for at least a year to carry out his economic plans.
Radical measures are needed “to prevent the current crisis from becoming a social catastrophe of biblical proportions,” Milei said in a speech to the nation when the legislation is announced. Congress “will have to choose whether it wants to be part of the solution or continue to be part of the problem.”
Ricardo Gil Lavedra, a constitutional lawyer who served as an Argentine congressman and justice minister, said that, without significant support from Congress, Milei appears to be trying to move quickly while he has a high approval rating, knowing that the surge pricing could give him an advantage. short period of time to act.
But concentrating so many provisions into a single bill and moving to consolidate more power in the presidency is terrible, he said.
“It is impossible for people to have any idea of the huge number of proposals that Milei sent,” he said. “They cover dozens and dozens and dozens of laws, often on deep topics, so I think the population generally doesn’t know what they’re discussing.”
However, resistance from unions and Congress is a sign that democracy works, Gil Lavedra said. “We have to work with a new government that is facing a very difficult situation and that has the support of a large number of Argentines,” he said. “But at the same time we must keep Argentina within the framework of a constitutional democracy.”
Daniele Politi contributed a report from Buenos Aires.