ARGENTINA: Strike & more – 9th May 2024

¡Buenos días from Greenway Parks! This is the Rorshok Argentina Update from the 9th of May twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Argentina.

To kick off this week, some updates on Milei’s proposed law reform packet. Even though the lower house approved the bill on the 30th of April, objections quickly arose in the Argentine Senate when the debating began on Tuesday, the 7th of May.

Senators from the provinces of Chubut and Santa Cruz were already poised to reject the draft law because it brought back the income tax, which would primarily affect oil workers from their provinces.

Many lawmakers were also against the bill granting additional powers to the executive branch. They don’t want to give the president more influence in legislative matters. For now, the bill’s future is still unknown.

The General Confederation of Labor (or CGT) called for a general strike for Tuesday, the 9th, to protest the government’s cuts in public spending.

For instance, Héctor Daer, the head of the healthcare worker’s union, said that the Government had not yet validated the salary increases meant to offset inflation agreed upon in collective bargains between private companies and unions.

Luis Caputo, the Economy Minister, spoke in an interview about ratifying the salary raise. He argued that raising salaries to a percentage higher than the projected inflation rates would drive up prices and that the government would not approve something that created a problem. The executive also announced that they would deduct a day of salary from every civil servant who adhered to the strike.

Up next, what is going on with President Milei’s Supreme Court candidate? In late April, the government presented federal judge Ariel Lijo as a candidate for Argentina’s Supreme Court. Milei says he chose him because the judge and the president’s party shared the same ideologies.

Of course, not everyone was happy with Lijo’s nomination.

The Buenos Aires Bar Association, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the National Law Academy are only three of the many organisms that pronounced themselves against Lijo’s candidacy, citing concerns about his ethics. Their main criticism was that the corruption cases he was in charge of tended to stagnate.

Now, María Eugenia Talerico, the president of the law group It shall be Justice or Será Justicia, echoed previous concerns and added that Lijo did not have enough academic experience to be considered an expert in his field either.

Moving on to Foreign Policy. It seems Argentina’s new government has caused a splash, but not in the way many hoped. It all started on Saturday, the 4th of May, when Óscar Puente, the Spanish Transport Minister, said Argentina’s president had “ingested substances,” implying that he was on drugs.

The Argentine government then released a statement saying Puentes' words were “slander and insults” and mentioned Pedro Sanchez’s government had more important issues to worry about, like the corruption accusations against Sanchez’s wife.

The Spanish Government then released an official statement too, saying that the content of Argentina’s communique did not seem proper for two peoples and countries that shared a brotherly bond. Puente later apologized for his words and said he did not expect them to have as much impact or spread as far as they did.

About the economy, the government announced that it will lower taxes on several imports. These include products such as fridges, washing machines, and tires. Manuel Adorni, the presidential spokesperson, said that the measure was meant to “adjust the tax percentages to be on par with other Mercosur countries.”

For appliances, the tax on importing appliances will go from thirty-five to twenty percent. On the other hand, tire import taxes will see a reduction from thirty-five percent to sixteen percent, and those for plastic supplies will go from around twelve percent to six percent. The government hopes this measure will lower costs and, in turn, lower prices for consumers.

In more economic news, On Tuesday, the 7th, Argentina’s Central Bank announced the launch of the 10,000 peso bill. The brand-new bill arrived days ago from China and is being distributed to banks nationwide. Its design features portraits of two important figures in Argentine history: María Remedios del Valle and Manuel Belgrano.

Manuel Belgrano was a key lawmaker and general during the Argentine independence process and the creator of the country’s flag. María Remedios del Valle was an Argentine soldier of African descent who fought in the Independence Wars as part of the Northern Army. Her bravery earned her a Sergeant Major rank and the title of Mother of the Homeland or Madre de la Patria.

It seems President Milei managed to impress Elon Musk during their meeting on

Monday, the 6th. The Argentine president had traveled to the US on Saturday to speak at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference.

At the event, Milei called on business people to “take a chance” on the country. The President had also praised Musk for his efforts in sending humans to Mars. Both the speech and the praise evidently worked since on Tuesday, the 7th, Musk posted on Twitter or X, the platform he owns, that he recommended people invest in Argentina

On Sunday, the 5th, Diego Kravetz, the security minister of Buenos Aires City, made headlines when he announced that the city government would no longer allow homeless people to sleep on the street.

The city’s government has been cracking down on those who sleep outside, actively relocating them to shelters, taking down camps, and searching their belongings for knives or makeshift weapons. Kravetz stated that their aim was to reduce crime.

However, one issue is that the shelters do a mandatory background check. People with arrest warrants are reluctant to sleep there because they don’t want the police to detain them.

The city government estimates that around fifty-seven percent of those who go to the shelters have a record.

Let’s leave the city and shift the focus to the countryside. Rising temperatures have brought about a proliferation of a leafhopper species that is now threatening Argentina’s corn production. These insects carry a disease that stunts the corn and causes damage to the kernels and cobs.

Regular frosts once checked the insects’ spread, but with winters becoming warmer, farmers fear these plagues might become more and more frequent. Cristian Russo, the head of agricultural estimates at the city of Rosario grains exchange, estimated that Argentine corn production would go from 60 million to 50.5 million tons.

Last week, we talked about President Milei's presentation at the Buenos Aires Book Fair. The President was set to make an appearance on Sunday, the 12th of May, to promote his new book Capitalism, Socialism and the Neoclassical Trap. Nevertheless, he has now pulled out of the event, saying his staff believed there could be an attempt to sabotage the event “in a violent way.”

As a justification, he cited that Alejandro Vaccaro, the president of the foundation that organizes the fair, criticized the government in his inauguration speech, so Milei would be entering a hostile environment.

And to close this edition, a long-lost award belonging to Argentine soccer ace Diego Maradona has resurfaced and is set to go up for auction in June. Maradona’s World Cup Golden Ball award from nineteen eighty-six had reportedly been stolen in nineteen eighty-nine. However, a collector bought it unknowingly in twenty sixteen.

The Golden Ball was given to Maradona during the nineteen eighty-six Mexico World Cup, which Argentina won. Previous Maradona memorabilia has fetched 8.8 million dollars in auction, so it’s expected the award will carry a pretty hefty price tag.

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

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¡Nos vemos la próxima semana!