ARGENTINA: A Cabinet Reshuffle & more – 6th Nov 2025

¡Buenos días from Greenway Parks! This is the Rorshok Argentina Update from the 6th of November twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Argentina.

As mentioned last week, a major cabinet reshuffle was expected following the midterm elections, and it happened fast. On Friday the 31st of October, Guillermo Francos resigned as Cabinet Chief. President Milei immediately named Manuel Adorni, his presidential spokesperson, to take over the role.

Francos’s departure also led to the resignation of his close associate Lisandro Catalán, the Interior Minister. To fill that key post, Milei appointed Diego Santilli, a politician from the PRO party. Santilli’s appointment has raised eyebrows, as he was just elected as a national deputy for Buenos Aires Province last week. Critics have accused the administration of using testimonial candidates, people who run for office with no intention of taking their seats. Milei stated that Santilli will be in charge of leading negotiations with governors and lawmakers for the reforms ahead.

A few days later, on Monday the 3rd, Alejandro Lew was named Finance Secretary. Lew replaces Pablo Quirno, who was recently appointed Foreign Minister. Lew is the former CFO of energy giant YPF and also briefly served as a director at the Central Bank earlier this year.

But this reshuffle isn’t just a simple swap. It has opened a major rift between the president and Mauricio Macri, leader of the PRO party and Milei’s key ally. Last week, we mentioned Milei was planning to meet with Macri to smooth things over. Well, that meeting took place on Friday the 31st at the presidential residence, but it did not go well.

Macri later posted on Twitter, openly criticizing Milei’s choice for cabinet chief. He called Adorni inexperienced and a mistaken choice, warning that this misguided decision risks a historic opportunity.

In an update to another story from last week, President Milei held a meeting with provincial leaders on Thursday the 30th to push his second-generation reforms. Milei called the meeting extremely positive and later said there was full consensus on the need for labor reform.

The conversation centered on changes to labor laws, taxes, and the criminal code. Twenty provincial leaders and the Buenos Aires City mayor attended the meeting. However, four Peronist governors were notably not invited, including Axel Kicillof of the Buenos Aires province. Milei said he excluded them because he couldn’t have a reasonable dialogue with people who “don't get four when adding two plus two.”

While Milei tries to win over the governors, his party is also poaching lawmakers. In a significant blow to Macri’s PRO party, seven lawmakers loyal to Patricia Bullrich, the Security Minister, announced they are defecting. The group is leaving PRO to formally join La Libertad Avanza, Milei’s party, in Congress. They argued that society has decided who leads the path of change, a move that weakens Macri’s bloc and strengthens Milei’s position in the legislature.

Speaking of Congress, the new legislature will have a major item on its agenda: the twenty twenty-six budget. The Budget Commission in the Chamber of Deputies is set to meet soon, but La Libertad Avanza wants to delay the discussion until after the 10th of December. That’s when the new, more favorable legislature is sworn in.

The opposition, however, is trying to push for a committee vote now. Many governors also support the delay to give them more time to negotiate for their own priorities, like public works and covering provincial deficits.

The government’s proposal projects a 5% increase in the per capita money supply, 10% inflation, and a dollar at 1,423 pesos by the end of twenty twenty-six.

Meanwhile, an old idea has resurfaced in Washington. Following last week’s news about a potential US-backed bailout, the Financial Times reported on Sunday the 2nd that President Trump’s administration is actively discussing a strategy to encourage several countries to adopt the US dollar. According to the report, US officials view Argentina as the leading candidate due to its chronic financial instability. However, Luis Caputo, Argentina’s Economy Minister, recently dismissed dollarization as a short-term option, citing a critical lack of dollar reserves.

In other economic news, the government is moving forward with its privatization plans. The national government has announced a public tender to privatize more than 1,800 kilometers (about 1,100 miles) of national routes. The announcement, made by Caputo, includes key stretches like the Riccheri, Newbery, and Ezeiza-Cañuelas highways. Caputo stated this will replace a deficit model with a transparent, competitive one, without Treasury subsidies.

From public roads to public health, Argentina’s national food and drug agency, ANMAT, has issued a new warning. It has prohibited eighteen dietary supplements from the firm Grupo Bio Fit SRL. An inspection found the company lacked the proper municipal authorization, a technical director, and couldn’t prove the traceability of its products. ANMAT also banned a diabetes medication identified as TIRZEC 5. The agency has ordered a national recall for all the listed products.

On that note about public safety, authorities announced they recently prevented a potential act of violence in the city. The FBI alerted Argentine authorities about a social media user expressing intentions to carry out a school shooting in the Caballito neighborhood of Buenos Aires City. The local cybercrime unit traced the user, identified as a sixteen-year-old boy. A police search of his home found replica firearms, knives, ammunition, and incendiary devices. Authorities also found a notebook with a written plan for an attack in November at his former high school.

The government is also reinforcing security on the border. Argentine authorities have deployed troops to the border with Brazil in the northeastern province of Misiones. This move is a response to fears that members of powerful Brazilian drug gangs might try to escape into Argentina following a deadly police raid in Rio de Janeiro that resulted in around 120 deaths.

As we mentioned last week, the 34th annual LGBTQ+ Pride march was scheduled for Saturday the 1st, and it drew thousands of people to the streets of Buenos Aires City. The march went from Plaza de Mayo to the National Congress under the slogan Against hate and violence: more pride and unity. Many participants protested what they described as a rise in hate speech fueled by the government.

A new report from Amnesty International warned of an accelerated rollback of LGBTI+ rights under the Milei administration, citing the dismantling of institutions like INADI (the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism) and the Ministry of Gender, which it says creates a climate of increased hostility.

The renowned Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team is conducting a new search for common graves in the Cementerio del Norte in Tucumán. They are searching for the remains of people who were disappeared during the military dictatorship between nineteen seventy-five and nineteen eighty-three. Previous digs at this site found about 200 unidentified bodies. The current dig is focused on more than 400 graves. For families of the disappeared, the new dig reignites hope for answers.

Now for some football news. Get ready, because this Sunday the 9th, Argentine football comes to a standstill for the Superclásico between Boca Juniors and River Plate. The stakes are especially high this time, as both teams are fighting for a spot in next year’s Copa Libertadores. Boca is currently in a good position and even a draw would secure their spot. It’s a very different story for River Plate, which has lost eight of its last ten games, prompting some fans to question coach Marcelo Gallardo. A defeat on Sunday could leave River on the brink of missing out on the tournament altogether.

And finally, to close this edition, if you’re looking for a good cup of coffee, a local spot has received international recognition. The Buenos Aires bakery and café Ninina has been named in South America’s 100 Best Coffee Shops twenty twenty-five ranking, standing at the 96th position. Ninina, which has three branches in Palermo, Villa Urquiza, and Las Cañitas, started focusing on specialty coffee back in twenty thirteen. Earlier this year, it was also ranked 64th in the World’s 100 Best Coffee Shops.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

We have some new t-shirts coming out soon, just in time for Christmas! Stay tuned!

¡Nos vemos la próxima semana!