Stories that caught our eye: March 6 to 13

INFLATION STATIC

Last month’s inflation was 2.9 percent, an identical figure to January in a shorter month, INDEC national statistics bureau announced on Thursday afternoon, thus making for an annual rate of 33.1 percent and 5.9 percent so far this year. President Javier Milei pledged that the trend would be downward from here and close to zero by winter. The biggest increase was in housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (6.8 percent), heavily influenced by public service pricing which would have had an even greater impact if the methodology had been updated, with the key item of food and beverages in second place at 3.3 percent. Core inflation (excluding regulated and seasonal prices) topped the overall average at 3.1 percent. The INDEC figure was in line with most forecasts. Hopes had been raised last Monday when City Hall statisticians measured last month’s inflation in the national capital at 2.6 percent, significantly down from January’s 3.1 percent, even if the key item of food and beverages was above the general average at 2.9 percent.

ARGENTINA WEEK

Prior to attending the inauguration of Chile’s new President José Antonio Kast in midweek, President Javier Milei was in Manhattan to inaugurate Argentina Week with a fiery speech blasting the “crony capitalism” of local businessmen, preceded by last weekend’s meeting with his United States counterpart Donald Trump at the Shield of the Americas Summit in Miami against drug cartels and Chinese hemispheric presence, where he confirmed his strategic alliance with Washington, and touching base with the Jewish community. The delegation for Argentina Week, aimed at promoting investments, included not only several ministers headed by Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni (and his wife in a controversial inclusion prompting an ironic comment from Vice-President Victoria Villarruel) but also no less than 11 provincial governors while the Miami Summit was attended by 10 other Latin American presidents, all right of centre. One of Milei’s targets was Techint’s Paolo Rocca, whom Forbes magazine’s 2026 ranking of billionaires showed to be the richest man in Argentina with an estimated fortune of US$7.3 billion, closely followed by Mercado Libre’s Marcos Galperin on US$7.2 billion while the country’s only other multi-billionaires are oil tycoon Alejandro Bulgheroni (US$5.1 billion) and Corporación América’s Eduardo Eurnekian (US$4.8 billion) with Elon Musk continuing to be the richest man worldwide.    

MIDDLE EAST EVACUATIONS

The government announced over the weekend that it was evacuating 248 Argentines stranded in the United Arab Emirates due to the war in the Middle East. A message posted by Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno on his X social network account indicated that 168 Argentines still remained to be evacuated from the Emirates. Argentina has tightened up security both at home and abroad with “key infrastructure and the Jewish community” here and embassies overseas the priorities. The government of President Javier Milei is explicitly aligned with the United States and Israel, supporting their military actions against Iran.

ARGENTINA’S ICE ON HOLD

The government has suspended the creation of the Agencia Nacional de Migraciones announced last November, leaving its appointed head, former Tres de Febrero mayor Diego Valenzuela, with no option but to occupy the seat in the Buenos Aires Province Senate which he won last September. Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei was the central figure behind the decision, according to government sources. Operating within the Security Ministry, the agency was designed to overhaul and centralise frontier controls in order to tighten up entry into this country but for now immigration control will remain under the Interior Ministry. The operational costs of the new agency with the resulting impact on the budget were said to be the main arguments for the suspension.

GLACIER LAW FILIBUSTER?

By midweek almost 28,000 organisations and people had already registered for the public hearing on the amendments to the Glacier Law, leading the government to suspect an attempt to filibuster the legislation. The solution would be to require most of the would-be speakers to express their opinions in writing, according to parliamentary sources, which is expected to lead to a strong protest. The ruling La Libertad Avanza party has also proposed a fixed number of speakers per caucus but three opposition deputies sent a letter to Congress Speaker Martín Menem asking for the public hearings to be extended. One of these deputies, Maximiliano Ferraro, admitted that the public hearings on the controversial 2020 abortion law had only given voice to 738 opinions as opposed to not far off 30,000 now. The Glaciers Law amendments were passed in the Senate by a 40-31 vote on February 26. Western governors are generally keen on the legislation, which is perceived as easing the restrictions on mining.   

SENATORS CASH IN

Senators stand to collect over 11 million pesos this month, an increase of 12.5 percent over six months, and 11.5 million pesos by May, benefitting from their incomes being linked to the salaries of upper house employees as negotiated by trade unions last Wednesday. At the start of the Javier Milei Presidency, this linkage was suspended by Vice-President Victoria Villarruel heading the Senate and Congress Speaker Martín Menem but a majority of senators already voted to restore it in April, 2024, a decision not taken by their lower house colleagues who gross almost six million pesos monthly as a result. Trade union leaders said that they would continue negotiating for more. Villarruel this week called for senators to donate their new hikes to the Garrahan Children’s Hospital.

COURT REBUFFS CGT

Judge Enrique Lavié Pico of the Administrative Litigation Court last Wednesday knocked back the injunction presented earlier this month by the CGT labour umbrella against the government’s labour reform as “unconstitutional,” especially the transfer of labour courts to the City of Buenos Aires. The CGT also objected to other aspects of the reform as violating such acquired labour rights as protection against arbitrary dismissal, the right to strike, collective bargaining, trade union prerogatives and social security. The writ submitted by all three CGT secretaries-general also objected to the extension of the workday to 12 hours as eliminating overtime and hence reducing pay.

VV SUES PETRI

Vice-President Victoria Villarruel last Thursday sued national deputy Luis Petri (La Libertad Avanza-Mendoza) for calumny in calling her a “coup-monger.” The slur arose when the ex-Radical former Defence minister chose to spell out explicitly what President Javier Milei had been implying in his state-of-the-nation speech at the start of the month. Apart from suing him, Villarruel also criticised Petri for underpaying the armed forces while heading the Defence Ministry. Federal judge Sebastián Ramos is in charge of the case. 

 WOMEN’S DAY DIFFERENTIALLY MARKED

Thousands marched last Monday to mark International Women’s Day (actually Sunday) with posters hostile to the Javier Milei government. In this city the march from Congress to Plaza de Mayo added protests against austerity and the recent labour reform to feminist issues, such as claiming justice for the victims of femicide. The government had a somewhat different take on International Women’s Day, releasing an institutional video rubbishing gender policies and presenting the dissolved Women’s Ministry as a “useless” instrument of political corruption. An even more extreme attitude was taken by the mayor of the Misiones township of Colonia Aurora, who gifted local women with buckets and brooms to clean their households. INDEC marked the day by releasing a report showing that Argentine women are paid 26 percent less than men on average while heading 80 percent of single-parent households. 

ROSARIO BABY SLAIN

A one-year-old baby named Gian was killed instantly by a shot through the heart while being held by his father in Rosario last weekend when a motorcyclist fired into a local hairdresser’s shop following a gunfight outside.