ARGENTINA: The President’s Crypto Scam & more – 20th Feb 2025

¡Buenos días from Greenway Parks! This is the Rorshok Argentina Update from the 20th of February twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Argentina.

Let’s kick off with the international scam that has Javier Milei, the Argentinian president, in the spotlight since Friday 14th. On that day, Milei posted on Twitter supporting a cryptocurrency token named LIBRA. Seconds after the post, the crypto’s value started to balloon due to a surge of investors buying the crypto. Around an hour later, the first investors started to sell, plummeting the coin’s value and making most buyers lose thousands and millions, while a tiny percentage of them, mostly the crypto’s creators, made up to 8.5 million dollars in profits.

Among hundreds of national and overseas lawsuits, the Argentinian leader's responsibility in the case is being studied: either the President himself is a key player in the scam or he didn’t know what he was promoting. However, there is plenty of evidence that shows that the odds of him not knowing are very low. The judge María Romilda Servini will be investigating whether Milei is guilty of committing a criminal offence.

The Argentinian president tried to give some explanations in a recorded interview on Monday 17th. He gave an inconsistent and contradictory version of the facts, and tried to place the blame on the investors themselves, saying that they “knew what they were getting into” and compared buying the crypto to playing Russian roulette.

He also said that his post on Twitter had the intention of merely sharing the initiative, disguised as an investment, on small Argentinian companies, not “endorsing” it. Of course, it is illegal for politicians to publicize private products or businesses.

Despite the current situation, Milei is still planning to fly to the United States this Thursday 20th for the Conservative Political Action Conference, which convenes right-wing politicians and activists annually. At the summit, he is expected to meet up with Donald Trump and with Tesla CEO and right-wing politician Elon Musk.

In this complex context for the government, on Thursday the 20th legislators from the ruling party, allied opposition groups and some Peronist members of the Senate agreed to discuss the suspension of the PASO primary elections. This issue is highly controversial, as supporters say this will reduce election costs and efforts, as people won’t have to go to vote twice. Those who are against suspending them say that this decision would only favor the ruling party and hinder the opposition, thus damaging the democratic process.

Milei is not the only Argentinian leader in the spotlight these days. Since Friday the 14th, Pope Francis has been hospitalized in Rome at the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic. After developing a complex polymicrobial lung infection, the Supreme Pontiff, who is eighty-eight years old, was taken in to receive medical care. As a result, he had to cancel a visit to the Cinecitta film studios that was scheduled for Monday the 17th, as part of the Jubilee of Culture.

What had started as bronchitis has now developed into a complex case of pneumonia in both lungs. However, from Vatican City they say that the Pope remains in good spirits, that he is thankful for the caring and attention he is receiving and asks that people continue their prayers for his good health.

Back in Argentina, several wildfires are still burning in the country’s Patagonia region. This time, the fire outbreaks appeared in a new location, in Villa Traful, in the Neuquén province, just sixty-two miles, or 100 kilometers, North of Bariloche, one of the strongest tourism hubs of Patagonia, in the south of Argentina. Similarly to the fires that have been tearing through El Bolsón and the Lanín National Park, there are high suspicions of these fires being intentional.

Luckily, thanks to the swift action of residents of the area and the park rangers, all six fire outbreaks were extinguished.

Picking up from a previous update, and in somewhat positive news, a fire outbreak in the Corrientes province, in the Northeast of the country, has also been controlled. The wildfire had torched about 200 hectares of land and is also suspected of having been intentional. A report shows that, as of February alone, 73 thousand hectares have been lost to wildfires in Corrientes, adding up to the 127 thousand of January.

These fire outbreaks happen in the legislative context of the decree signed by President Milei in January twenty twenty-four. This decree, among other things, goes against the Fire Management Law, which established a minimum budget to prevent and fight against fire outbreaks, and prohibited a piece of land from being used for real estate projects from thirty to sixty years after being intentionally burnt.

Switching gears, let’s talk about the economy. In January, the national trade surplus was 142 million dollars, the lowest since president Milei took office. In January twenty twenty-four, the recorded trade surplus was 5,748 million dollars. This decline is due to the sudden rise in imports compared to exports. According to the national statistics body, there was a 25% increase in imports compared to January twenty twenty-four, while exports only grew 9%.

The removal of taxes and regulations on imports, which favor the replacement of local production with imported goods, explains this rise in imports.

On lighter and more heart-warming news, Argentinian biologist and CONICET researcher Sandra Díaz was awarded the twenty twenty-five Tyler Prize, or what many call the environmental Nobel Prize along with Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Brondízio. CONICET is the main government agency that promotes scientific and technological research.

These scientists were chosen for their studies on the interconnection between humans and biodiversity. They worked jointly in the development of IPBES, an analytical tool that explains the different ways in which human activity affects nature and vice versa, to create more sustainable and higher-quality nature-human interactions. IPBES has been applied to design environmental policies for the UN and in various countries.

The University of Southern California has awarded The Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement since nineteen seventy-three, and the scientists will receive it in Los Angeles next April.

If you have been watching the most bingeable Argentinian shows, you might have heard about the Netflix show, Love is Blind: Argentina. In the show, sixteen women go on blind dates with sixteen men, during which they are expected to get to know each other and ultimately, get engaged. At the end of the show, after living together for a month, they decide if they get married or not.

On Thursday 13th, one of the show’s most widely known women, Emily, explained that she had reported her husband, Santiago Martínez, who she met and married on the show, for gender-based violence. She gave a detailed account of how he had been applying physical violence against her for over a year, and also showed bruises from the latest attack she suffered. Luckily, she was able to leave the apartment they shared without him knowing, to her sister’s house.

And to close this edition, also on Thursday 13th, Milo J, a young musician and singer, had scheduled a free pre-listening show of his latest album, 166 (Deluxe), at the ex-ESMA, a site of Memory and museum of the victims of the last dictatorship in Argentina.

The event, which was scheduled to open its doors at 5 pm, was suddenly canceled at 4 pm by the government via an injunction. Mariano Cúneo Libarona, the minister of Justice, later posted on Twitter that the decision was due to the event not being authorized. The executive sent the police and water cannons to disperse the thousands of fans, mostly teenagers, who were already waiting in line to watch the show.

If you would like to listen to Milo J’s latest album, check out the link in the show notes!

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

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¡Nos vemos la próxima semana!