2025: The year that was

Below follows this newspaper’s ninth annual review (and the fifth year dominated by elections towards its end), based entirely on Buenos Aires Times content. Without any further ado, here goes:

JANUARY

WEEK 1. The year starts on a sad note with the passing of two greats who just failed to make it into 2025 – the nation mourns iconic journalist Jorge Lanata, who lost a long battle against illness at the age of 64, and a wider world the centenarian Jimmy Carter, president of the United States during much of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship here, which he nobly confronted. Furthermore, two more famous names of Argentine birth end their days abroad – actress Olivia Hussey (aged 73) in Hollywood and crooner Leo Dan (82) on New Year’s Day in Miami. An electoral year begins with President Javier Milei still deciding whether polarisation or fragmentation of the opposition is his best bet and a peso appreciation sending several million Argentines to holiday abroad already beginning, together with a budget rollover for the second year running. Milei’s libertarians are already at loggerheads with PRO Mayor Jorge Macri’s City Hall in order to cannibalise everything right of centre. On J2 the Foreign Ministry denounces Venezuela to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for the “arbitrary arrest” of Border Guard corporal Nahuel Gallo on charges of “terrorism” while federal judge and Supreme Court nominee Ariel Lijo rules the extradition of another Latin American dictator, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, for human rights violations in the name of universal justice. Supreme Court nominations become that much more urgent with justice Juan Carlos Maqueda reaching the statutory retirement age of 75 just before the New Year, reducing the top tribunal to three. A couple more officials bite the dust – Tourism Undersecretary Yanina Martínez (one of the few remaining holdovers from the Frente de Todos administration) is dumped for vacationing in Europe despite a presidential ban on holidays abroad, ignored by Security Minister Patricia Bullrich sticking to plans to take her grandsons to Disneyworld. Meanwhile Buenos Aires Province Transport Minister Jorge d’Onofrio (close to the 2023 Peronist presidential candidate Sergio Massa) finally resigns after several weeks under pressure over a scheme whereby traffic offenders can dodge fines via manipulation of court verdicts in exchange for kickbacks. At the turn of the year the 20th anniversary of the Cromañón rock club blaze, Argentina’s most lethal disaster leaving 194 dead, is marked.

W2. President Milei declares 2025 the “Year of the Reconstruction of the Argentine Nation” and ups tension with Vice-President Victoria Villarruel, complaining of her “unforced errors.” A major foreign debt repayment of US$4.34 billion on 2020 bonds but the chain of payments problems of the solid Grobos agribusiness indicates that the balance of payments is increasingly out of whack due to an overvalued currency making for cheaper imports at the expense of local industry while discouraging exports, thus making the economy ever less competitive. The RIGI major investment incentive scheme kicks off with a pledge of US$211 million (barely above the mínimum) to a Mendoza solar energy plant while there is also a maiden privatisation in the same province with the state shares in the steel company IMPSA SA put up for sale. The infanticide trial of the potassium poisoning of five newborn babies at Córdoba’s maternity hospital begins. But in general a relatively quiet summer holiday week as the country looks forward to a year of growth rebounding from the 2024 contraction due to “chainsaw” austerity with the World Bank forecasting five percent.

W3. An official figure of 117.8 percent for 2024 inflation is given by INDEC statistics bureau on J14, almost halving the 211.4 percent of the previous year, which closed on 2.7 percent for December (a percentage which does not stop Milei from halving crawling peg devaluation to one percent as from February). The government summons Congress for extraordinary sessions between J20 and February 21 with Supreme Court nominations and the elimination of PASO primaries as a useless cost as the top priorities. The first International Monetary Fund (IMF) report of the year is favourable while warning of low Central Bank reserves, peso appreciation and the need to lift the ‘cepo’ currency and capital controls. Economy Minister Luis Caputo relaxes anti-dumping regulations to ease imports. Another Mendoza solar park gives RIGI its second investment while the privatisation of private highways is announced. Tres de Febrero Mayor Diego Valenzuela defects from centre-right PRO to La Libertad Avanza on J16. Bullrich defends her anti-picket protocols against the critiques of Amnesty International and others, calling them “progressive cry-babies who understand nothing.” At the end of the week Milei heads to Washington for Donald Trump’s inauguration while the 10th anniversary of AMIA special prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s bafflingly mysterious death is marked and played up by the ardently pro-Israel Milei Presidency.

W4. Hurricane Donald – the week begins with the Republican’s inauguration when Trump declares a MAGAlomaniac tariff war on the rest of the world (soon followed by talk of annexing Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal), at all odds with the free-trade principles of his Washington guest Milei in the process of opening up Argentina. In contrast to Milei, Trump is fiscally as well as politically incorrect. Then onto the World Economic Forum in Davos where Milei’s J23 speech wastes a precious opportunity to woo overseas investors deploying billions or even trillions of dollars by preaching to the converted about the global hazards faced by a capitalism triumphant even in China, followed by an all-out onslaught against “the cancer of woke ideology” (perhaps Milei’s main overlap with a protectionist Trump) identifying it as an excuse to advance the state, while accusing at least some of his audience of complicity although he does plug Argentina as “a global example of fiscal responsibility” (indeed bringing macro-economic stability but also making many Argentines feel priced out of their own country). Milei might imagine he is riding a global Zeitgeist after Trump’s inauguration but the attack on woke is also wasted on a domestic audience more inclined to define it as a Chinese stir-fry. After repeated pressure from farming lobbies, Economy Minister Caputo announces a reduction of grain export duties until midyear (from 33 to 26 percent for soy and from 12 to 9.5 percent for wheat, maize and barley) along with the elimination of export duties for regional economies – the cuts only accruing to those cashing in 95 percent of their crops within the following fortnight shows that the underlying motive is a government urgency to pump dollars out of farmers. Mapuche militant leader Facundo Jones Huala is again arrested amid suspicions that forest fires in Chubut are the work of his following. The Human Capital Ministry releases a report placing poverty in the first half of 2024 at 61 percent, the highest figure yet.

W5. A week in which both Barra and Marra are shown the door – respectively former Supreme Court justice Rodolfo Barra, 77, recycled as Milei’s Treasury Attorney and 2023 City libertarian mayoral candidate Ramiro Marra. Barra is bumped for siding with a Justice Ministry employee suing the state for a pay bonus and for spending too much time abroad – he is replaced by administrative law expert Santiago María Castro Videla, member of a law office which has been a witness for the prosecution in Burford Capital hedge fund’s US$16.1-billion lawsuit against Argentina over the 2012 nationalisation of YPF. Marra is expelled from the La Libertad Avanza (LLA) City Legislature caucus for voting in favour of Mayor Jorge Macri’s budget instead of falling in line with presidential chief-of-staff Karina Milei’s strategy of cannibalising right field by attacking the PRO City Hall. Backlash from the LGBTQ + collective in the form of an “anti-fascist march” against Milei’s anti-woke speech at Davos, which included equating homosexuality with paedophilia. Federico Sturzenegger’s Deregulation & State Transformation Ministry quantifies the chainsaw at 37,595 less public employees in the course of 2024, saving the state over US$4 billion. The Defence Ministry cashiers 23 retired military officers after their sentences for crimes against humanity are upheld in court but the portfolio headed by Luis Petri is at pains to stress that they are only following court orders against their will. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) calls for giving the accumulation of Central Bank reserves priority over currency appreciation and for positive interest rates when much of the government’s electoral trump card of decelerating inflation has been achieved by pegging both devaluation and interest rates behind the cost of living figure instead of having these two variables chase inflation.

FEBRUARY

W6. Milei decides to quit the World Health Organisation, following in Trump’s footsteps just a fortnight later, blasting its “Stone Age lockdowns” during the coronavirus pandemic. The Chamber of Deputies approves the suspension of this year’s PASO primaries by a 162-55 vote with 28 abstentions, thus saving the country some US$200 million according to presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni – a taboo on changing electoral rules in an election year is thus defied. Milei announces that the cepo currency and capital controls will be lifted on the New Year’s Day of 2026 while the Central Bank starts the month by halving the crawling peg monthly devaluation from two to one percent, also reducing annual interest rates from 32 to 26 percent. Gender violence and state insurance fraud cases see ex-president Alberto Fernández in court in the first week of the judicial year. Security Minister Bullrich is rebranded as National Security Minister but the song remains the same. The summer holidays continue to see thousands of Argentines spilling over frontiers to snap up half-price garments and electronics abroad. After 15 months at the heart of government strategy, star spin doctor Santiago Caputo finally becomes a card-carrying member of La Libertad Avanza.

W7. Milei flies into his first black swan right at the end of the week in a post-modern version of Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre with a multi-billion bubble bursting in his face when he plugs the ‘$LIBRA’ crypto-currency on his social media (with some 14 million followers), sending the token’s value up to a stratospheric US$4.5 billion only for its creators headed by the Texan Hayden Davis to pull the rug and Milei to withdraw his support (within minutes or even seconds of each other, thus making it difficult to say which came first), thus causing a bonanza for a few and ruinous losses for many even if there is no law guaranteeing speculative gamblers (who hardly come from the most vulnerable sectors of society) a gain, as Milei’s caveat emptor logic points out – although if a casino, why endorse it? INDEC gives the year’s first inflation figure – 2.2 percent for January with annual inflation retreating into double digits at 84.5 percent for the first time since mid-2020 (when pandemic slowdown was synonymous with lockdown). Trump rules out any exemption for Argentina from the 25 percent tariff slapped on all steel and aluminium imports into the United States, thus jeopardising some US$600 million worth of exports. The week starts with a mini-purge (an imitation of Trump’s trademark “You’re fired”?) – Sonia Cavallo is dumped as Ambassador to the Organisation of American States (OAS) explicitly because President Milei considers her father (former economy minister and convertibility czar Domingo Cavallo) “impresentable” for questioning his monetary policies as overvaluing the currency, while ANSES social security administration chief Mariano de los Heros is shown the door rather more quietly for floating a pension reform plan including a higher retirement age which Milei feels obliged to deny – he is replaced by Fernando Bearzi. Later in the week (F13) Environment Undersecretary Ana Lamas walks out in sheer exasperation over the zero interest of a government shunning all international conclaves in the area. La Libertad Avanza but with zero tolerance for dissent. Congress approves the ‘Ficha Limpia’ bill barring those with corruption convictions from political candidacies by a 144-98 vote (only the left sides with Kirchnerism). The tender for dredging and modernising the Hidrovía waterway transporting some 80 percent of Argentine grain exports comes to a standstill continuing to this day when the 11 companies originally in the running are whittled down to one Belgian offer. The Housing Department (a full-fledged ministry in the previous Frente de Todos administration) is dissolved by Decree 70/2025 decentralising housing policies to provincial and municipal governments and to the private sector. “Pseudo-Mapuche arson” is again blamed for Patagonian forest fires, this time by ministers Bullrich and Petri, with the former branding RAM (Resistencia Ancestral Mapuche) as a terrorist organisation.

W8. The aftermath of ‘Cryptogate’ dominates the week with the Kirchnerite opposition calling for Milei’s impeachment and 100 charges of fraud lodged in courts. Milei’s self-criticism does not go beyond admitting the need for more filters on access to the presidency (enjoyed by Davis et al) but the scandal devalues the presidential word at a time when the currency is being appreciated. Presidents should not be influencers, even on their own time, and there is something very strange about a head of state recommending anything other than his country’s own currency, even if $LIBRA coincides with his Zodiac sign. A trained economist should know that crypto is an extremely dodgy universe where angels fear to tread (Economy Minister Caputo claims that it mystifies him “even if explained to me a million times”) and check facts – faced with the choice of being a crook or a fool, Milei prefers the latter, pleading ignorance before flying to the United States to meet up with an Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw. Initial opinion polls show the impact to be a double-digit switch from the middle ground to negative opinions of Milei while presidential support remains almost intact but the libertarian lion’s long honeymoon is finally over. The Senate votes for the suspension of PASO. Ex-president Alberto Fernández is sent to trial for causing grievous bodily harm to former first lady Fabiola Yáñez. Banco Nación is transformed by decree into a limited company even though its privatisation had been rejected by Congress the previous year – COVIARA state company for naval housing is also privatised. Fernando Brom replaces Lamas as the new environment chief, despite prior criticism of government indifference to for