Stories that caught our eye: September 19 to 26

 

MILEI’S BIG APPLE

President Javier Milei’s trip to New York (formally to address the annual General Assembly of the United Nations but in real terms far more geared to rallying United States aid in dollars to ward off financial crisis) began on a high note – within two hours of his arrival on Tuesday morning, he had met his US colleague Donald Trump who called him “a truly fantastic leader … advancing Argentina at record speed” and promising “my complete and total support for his re-election.” On Wednesday US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced negotiation of a currency swap of US$20 billion with the Central Bank to bail Argentina out of crisis as well as a readiness to purchase Argentine dollar bonds “with all option on the table” but only “immediately after the elections” – announcements which sent country risk and the exchange rate plunging apart from earning Milei’s “enormous thanks.” Bessent further said that he had contacted numerous US companies who would be making important direct investments in Argentina “in the event of a positive electoral result.” Milei’s 20-minute speech to the UN General Assembly at noon Wednesday, ostensibly the reason for his presence in New York, took second place to all this – most of it was spent praising Trump with a relatively mild call for UN overhaul accompanied by a general rebuke of international bureaucracy while not forgetting to assert Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas. Wednesday also included a friendly meeting with International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva who described Argentina as “moving in the right direction.” Last Monday Foreign Minister Gerardo Werthein took advantage of being in the United States to formalise teaming up in a programme of civilian nuclear energy while back home Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos hosted a six-strong US Congress delegation. 

 

EXPORT DUTIES BRIEFLY SUSPENDED

Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni announced last Monday the elimination of export duties on all crops and by-products through to the end of October (just after the midterms) with the explicit objective of encouraging export earnings to be cashed and thus increase the supply of dollars on the market, boosting Central Bank reserves and banishing the uncertainty which Adorni blamed on “the old politics.” The exemption was to be discontinued before Halloween if US$7 billion were cashed with the available grain stocks estimated at around US$10 billion. Farming leaders hailed the elimination of export duties even if temporary. But the United States did not look kindly on this cost reduction for competitors of their own farmers with US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent saying on Wednesday morning: “We are working with the Argentine government to end the tax exemptions for those producers of primary materials who cash in foreign currency,” in a reference to President Javier Milei’s presence in New York. Whether or not in response to this, the Central Bank announced the same day that the target of US$7 billion in grain sales (US$4.18 billion in the first two days) had already been reached, suspending the benefit with the farming sector expressing disappointment over the closure and all the profits of US$1.5 billion accruing to a dozen grain exporters. 

 

DISABILITY LAW UP AND LIMPING

The government promulgated the disability emergency law at the start of the week via Decree 681/2025 published in the Official Gazette after Congress had overridden the presidential veto but Article 2 of the decree stated that it would not be coming into force until Congress clarified its funding over and above the allocations in the 2026 Budget. Law 27,793 would cost just over three trillion pesos or 0.35 percent of Gross Domestic Product, the decree calculated, and would thus come into conflict with fiscal balance, which was paramount. The decree quoted Article 38 of the Financial Administration Law as stipulating: “Any law which authorises spending not provided in the general budget will have to specify its financing, otherwise its execution is suspended until the corresponding allocations are included in the national budget.” The disability legislation overlaps with allegations of graft in that area reaching up to Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei.

 

GARRAHAN HIKES

The Garrahan Children’s Hospital on Monday released a communiqué informing that thanks to “a process of ordering accounts with administrative efficiency … and reducing unnecessary expenses,” it could assign funds to its main priorities, its health teams and attention to patients, giving the former as from this month a bonus of 450,000 pesos for medical staff and 350,000 for other employees. “The Garrahan Hospital thus consolidates its position as a national centre of reference in paediatric health, guaranteeing the best attention to children and adolescents nationwide,” the communiqué concluded.

 

POVERTY STILL RECEDING

Poverty dropped from 38.1 percent to 31.6 percent (concentrated in 24.1 percent of households) and destitution from 8.2 to 6.9 percent between the last quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of this year, the INDEC national statistics bureau reported last Thursday. Experts, however, questioned the methodology.

 

DEREGULATION STILL AT WORK

The government last Wednesday repealed 71 norms, including the ‘Ley de Góndolas’ (obliging supermarkets to place a full range of brands on their shelves), the Anti-Hoarding Law (already ditched at the start of the Javier Milei presidency) and “Fair Prices” legislation.

 

NOT EVEN WORTH THE PAPER?

The debt-ridden pulp and paper company Celulosa Argentina announced on September 19 that it had been acquired via a hostile takeover by the Argentine businessman Esteban Nofal, head of the CIMA group, who paid the symbolic price of a dollar. The company, whose debts run up to some US$128 million, called in the receivers at the end of August. Previously Celulosa had been in the hands of the Tapebicuá fund, whose shareholders include José Urtubey, Douglas Albrecht and Juan Collado.

 

MURDER MOST FOUL

The bodies of three females – Morena Verdi and Brenda Del Castillo (cousins both aged 20) and Lara Gutiérrez (15) – were found in Florencio Varela last Wednesday, victims of an exceptionally brutal murder after being tortured and mutilated with their bodies dissected. Two men and two women were quickly arrested and face life imprisonment for the brutal triple homicide. The girls were abducted on September 19 and are thought to have been put to death in the small hours of the next day. The crime is believed to have been a vendetta after the women allegedly pinched two kilos of cocaine from a Peruvian drug-trafficking gang leader in a context of prostitution.

 

BELÉN GETS NOD

The Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas Argentina decided last Thursday that Dolores Fonzi’s pro-choice film Belén would be representing Argentina in next year’s Oscars in Hollywood, winning out over the box office hit Homo Argentum, among other candidates.

 

BOOK LAUNCH

President Javier Milei is not allowing electoral setbacks or financial crisis to stand in the way of launching his new book La construcción del milagro, (“The construction of the miracle”), which will be presented with a free show on October 6 at the Movistar Arena in Villa Crespo with a capacity for 15,000 spectators, he announced last weekend. Not the best timing from various standpoints but launching the 576-page book priced at 32,000 pesos, which explains the economic programme leading to what has been hailed internationally as “the Argentine miracle,” also forms part of the campaign for next month’s midterms. In May, 2022, the then deputy Milei made a similar presentation in Luna Park of his book Capitalismo, socialismo y la trampa neoclásica (“Capitalism, socialism and the neoclassical trap”) when he not only spoke but sang his own rendering of La Renga’s ‘Panic Show.’

 

ANOTHER MOTHER DIES

Azucena Díaz, a leading member of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo who spent almost half a century looking for her son Manuel Taján, a trade union militant of the Tucumán sugar workers who went missing during the last military dictatorship, died last weekend. A native of Tucumán, she moved in 1980 to La Matanza (Gregorio de Laferrere), from where she joined the Madres de Plaza de Mayo on their march every Thursday together with her daughter Dora. Early last year the Human Rights Committee of the Buenos Aires Province Senate declared her a “Distinguished Personality of Human Rights.” Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof, the HIJOS (Hijos e Hijas por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio) human rights organisation and the Mothers themselves all sent their condolences and paid tribute to her memory.

 

ALPEROVICH STAYS CONFINED

The Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously rejected the extraordinary appeal of the defence lawyers of former three-term Tucumán governor José Alperovich, upholding his 16-year prison sentence for aggravated sexual abuse (now being served under house arrest in Puerto Madero). Senator at the time of his conviction in mid-2024, Alperovich was accused of abusing his authority to sexually abuse his niece, 35 years younger and an aide at the time.

 

PAINTING MOVED

The painting Portrait of a Lady by the Italian baroque painter Giuseppe Ghislandi, stolen by the Nazis during the Second World War, was moved from Mar del Plata to the central courthouse in this capital last Monday amid tight security.

 

MALAYSIA CELEBRATES

Last Tuesday Malaysia held a reception to mark the anniversaries of Malayan independence (August 31, 1957) and the creation of the Federation of Malaysia (September 16, 1963) as well as this year’s pro tem presidency of the ASEAN trade bloc (billed as the world’s fourth economy) for good measure. Chargé d’affaires Idham Zuhri bin Mohamed Yunus hosting the event reported a bilateral trade volume reaching US$1.76 billion, listed the Malaysian investors here and urged his audience to take advantage of 2026 being “Visit Malaysia” year to discover the country’s “cultural heritage, natural beauty and modernity,” all richly illustrated by the screen overlooking the hotel salon. Nobody leaves Malaysia hungry, said the Southeast Asian country’s representative here, and nor did any guest leave the reception hungry with plenty of rendang spicy beef stew along with other more local delicacies.