INKING MORE FUNDS
The International Monetary Fund Tuesday gave technical approval to an Extended Fund Facility agreement over four years with Argentina including a US$20 billion remittance with final approval from the IMF board of directors yesterday still pending at press time and with the initial outlay (estimated at up to US$12 billion) yet to be defined. But the good news did not prevent country risk soaring into four digits before closing the day at 978 points, due entirely to the global turbulence caused by the tit-for-tat tariffs between the United States and China. Yet there was still icing on the cake of the IMF agreement with Thursday’s announcement that US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent will be here on Monday to express support for the libertarian administration’s economic reforms in the direction of fiscal austerity, free markets and structural reforms, meeting up with President Javier Milei, his local counterpart Economy Minister Luis Caputo and leading businessmen – a boost for Milei following his wasted trip to the United States in the previous week in a vain bid to secure a photo with US President Donald Trump.
KICILLOF TO GO IT ALONE
Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof tossed a bombshell into the political arena last Monday when he announced that his district would be advancing its provincial elections to September 7, also submitting a bill to the provincial legislature to suspend the PASO primaries. This decision has irked ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner now chairing the Partido Justicialista, who insists on national and provincial elections being held on the same October 26 date to maximise Peronist turnout, explicitly warning Kicillof against advancing the elections at a weekend meeting in the Buenos Aires provincial capital of La Plata. Kicillof’s call thus rates as open defiance, threatening to split Kirchnerism and the party machine in Buenos Aires Province down the middle. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s immediate reaction was to huddle in midweek with Greater Buenos Aires mayors and confirm that she would be running for the provincial legislature in the Third Section (southern Greater Buenos Aires) in the advanced September elections while appealing for Peronist unity to be maintained, a sentiment echoed the same day by Kicillof, who said: “There is only one adversary, the government of [Javier] Milei.” But beyond this year’s midterms there was speculation that Kicillof’s defection leaves Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with no choice but to see herself as the only possible Unión por la Patria presidential candidate for 2027.
NOT SO GENERAL STRIKE
Last Thursday there was a general strike called by the CGT labour umbrella grouping to protest the austerity policies of the Javier Milei administration (the third such stoppage against the current government) which was less general than some of its predecessors, thanks in large measure to bus services continuing to run despite other means of transport (the subway, trains and aviation with over 250 flights cancelled) grinding to a halt. Many shops remained open and prívate schools gave classes with almost normal downtown traffic despite the stoppage but banks and the public sector as a whole shut down with huge queues at many bus stops. FECOBA retailers' chamber maintained that 95 percent of shops remained open although their members reported a 25 percent dip in sales as a result of the strike. The partial nature of the stoppage did not prevent CGT secretary-general Héctor Daer calling the general strike a “resounding success” but Senator Bartolomé Abdala (La Libertad Avanza-San Luis), the government’s upper house leader, said it had cost the country US$880 million while a government communiqué called the CGT “wild animals.”
CRYPTO PROBE UP AND RUNNING
Congress managed to approve a commission to investigate the scandal of the ‘$LIBRA’ cryptocurrency publicised by President Javier Milei last February with 128 votes in favour and 93 against – less than the deputies needed for quorum. The deputies also approved the interpellations of Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos and Ministers Luis Caputo (Economy) and Mariano Cúneo Liberona (Justice). The government sought to counter the negative impact of this session by pushing its bill to lower the age of criminal responsibility.
SWAP RENEWED
The Central Banks of China and Argentina on Thursday agreed to renew a currency swap of 35 billion yuans (worth some US$5 billion) for a further year from midyear, thus reducing the risks for a change in monetary régime. The swap dates from early 2023 when the Alberto Fernández administration activated it in order to mitígate the effects of drought. It was renewed by the Javier Milei government in mid-2024. The renewal did not pass without criticism from Washington with Mauricio Claver Carone, Donald Trump’s special envoy for Latin America, calling the swap an instrument of extortion for Beijing, recommending that the imminent agreement with the IMF should ensure its elimination, but the Chinese government defended the swap, calling it “a contribution to the country’s economic and financial stability and welcomed by the Argentine government.”
GARCÍA-MANSILLA CALLS IT QUITS
Manuel García-Mansilla lasted less than six weeks as a justice of the Supreme Court (appointed by decree) before resigning last Monday following Senate rejection of his nomination on April 3 by a 51-20 vote – more than the two-thirds majority needed to approve him. The departing legal scholar accompanied his resignation with a warning against “the false belief that the Supreme Court can function with only three justices.”
CITY INFLATION UP
Last month’s inflation in the national capital was 3.2 percent, City Hall statisticians reported on Wednesday, more than a percentage point up from February’s 3.2 percent for an increase of 8.6 percent in the first quarter of this year. The biggest culprit was Education (14.3 percent) in the first month of classes, a seasonal factor, but the key item of food and beverages was also well above average at 4.7 percent. The good news was core inflation (excluding regulated and seasonal prices) receding to 2.7 percent. Services rose 3.3 percent and merchandise goods three percent.
CHAINSAW STILL HACKING
A total of 42,034 public administration employees have left their posts in the last 14 months, thus saving the public purse an annual US$1.65 billion, Deregulation & State Transformation Minister Federico Sturzenegger revealed just before last weekend. “Less taxes for all of us. This work, the backbone of our irreversible policy of fiscal surplus, is the task of the entire government,” the minister commented. Among the job cuts, 24,244 correspond to the central administration, 13,711 to state companies and 4,079 to the armed and security forces.
TOYOTA GOES ELECTRIC
Toyota Hilux pick-ups have been produced in the delta town of Zárate since 1997 but last Monday a new milestone was announced: “Toyota plans to begin manufacturing an electric Hilux in Argentina,” as revealed by the journalist Ryohei Shimizu in Nikkei, Japan’s leading financial daily. This strategy is reportedly a direct response to Donald Trump’s aggressive policies slapping 25 percent tariffs on car imports to the United States. To date Toyota only has five models of electric vehicles produced exclusively in Japan and China. The current experimental model of the Hilux has a range of 230 kilometres. Toyota’s Zárate plant employs 6,000 workers and exports to over 20 Latin American countries.
BIASI ACCUSED OF ANTI-SEMITISM
Federal judge Daniel Rafecas yesterday placed Partido Obrero deputy Vanina Biasi (the left’s 2023 City mayoral candidate and also topping its list in this year’s midterms) for presumed violation of the Anti-Discrimination Law on the grounds of messages in the X social network comparing the State of Israel with the Nazi régime and the results of the Gaza Strip conflict with the Holocaust, "exceeding the limits of the freedom of expression" in the opinion of the judge, who slapped a lien of 10 million pesos on her assets. Biasi’s reaction was to affirm that she was being “placed on trial for being against a genocide state,” claiming that not only did Israel “have its judges” like Rafecas but that the judiciary was always ready to “give a helping electoral hand to its politically and economically powerful friends” while concluding: “Down with the apartheid and extermination of the Palestinian people and long live the international movement which battles against the Israeli genocides.”
TRAP FOR JIMMY FALLON
CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso, the Argentine duo performing experimental trap, pop and hip hop, appeared last Wednesday night in Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show in the United States, reaching millions of viewers and hundreds of millions more online. In the past the eccentric duo has appeared with the famous singers Tini Stoessel and Lali Espósito, as well as recording their music with the well-known producer Bizarrap.
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