Milei wants right-wing forum as restarts ‘chainsaw’

After attending US President Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony in Washington and participating once again at the World Economic Forum  in Switzerland, Javier Milei is recharged and ready to go. He will go even further: Argentina’s President wants to create an international forum grouping countries along the same ideological lines. And he intends to continue executing his “chainsaw” plan with two axes: tackling decentralised state bodies and the life insurance policies outlined in collective-bargaining labour agreements.

Milei feels that his government is going through its best moment and that his ideological line – a war against minorities, with a bill being prepared to remove “positive discrimination,” the concept of femicide from the Penal Code and state representation quotas – has an international echo.

He is emboldened and validated by the rise of figures like Trump, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele (with whom Milei’s administration has strong ties and an excellent relationship). The composition of the world map leads him to think that in the short term it is possible to design a political and cultural forum grouping several countries in ideological sync, with the United States and Israel in the foreground, in addition to Italy and El Salvador. The fight is against the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda, one of the economist's obsessions, and he feels they can offer an “alternative” agenda.

This move, according to a close associate of the President, does not mean that Argentina will renounce the United Nations entirely, although it will try to distance itself from multilateral organisations, such as the World Health Organisation, the Paris Climate Agreement and even the Mercosur trade bloc. Exits that will not be easy in the face of the accumulation of treaties and budgetary commitments that have already been signed.

At the local level, the President is adjusting his chainsaw plan with two defined phases ahead. On the one hand, as an important official in the La Libertad Avanza administration told Perfil, the idea is to focus on decentralised bodies, with a review of their budgets and staffing levels. It is seen as a pending debt from last year, in which there were announcements, some layoffs and progress, as shown by the shuttering of the INADI anti-discrimination watchdog or the National Mint, which was stripped of its functions. However, as one libertarian source remarked, more concrete steps were lacking.

In this context, a list of several entities that Milei believes should go down in history includes the National Institute of Industrial Technology (INTI), the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA), the National Seed Institute (INASE) and the National Institute of Viticulture (INVITI).

There is one, however, that will not go through the chainsaw for the time being: SENASA, whose function is to guarantee animal and plant health, as well as food safety – all key elements for exports.

According to reporting by Perfil, several business chambers have raised flags and stated that SENASA cannot be modified.

On the other hand, the government is analysing changes to Decree 1567/74, which obliges employers to take out life insurance for their employees, something that is enshrined in the collective-bargaining labour agreements for formally registered activities. It has not been ruled out that the regulation that establishes this obligation will become a thing of the past.

The technical team of Federico Sturzenegger’s Deregulation & State Transformation Ministry is already working on this issue. Last week at the Casa Rosada, the first meeting on the topic was held with a member of the leadership of the CGT umbrella union grouping who has knowledge of the issue. For the moment, there were no substantive definitions and they agreed to continue talking.

Within the CGT’s offices, on Azopardo Street, there is a promise to “defend the rights of the workers.” They warn that any modification could open a legal battle with insurance companies registered with the Superintendencia de Seguros.