President Javier Milei defended his record in office and stressed that he would fulfil his mandate to bring down inflation and grow the economy, as he closed out an Americas Society/Council of the Americas conference on Thursday at a hotel in Buenos Aires.
“My mandate is to bring down inflation and grow the economy, and I will fulfil it,” the President told an audience of business leaders, CEOs and government officials.
Milei, 55, reviewed his administration’s record, slammed critical economists and journalists and expressed confidence over his re-election bid, saying he still trusted “in Argentines who do not want to return to the past.”
Nearly half of Milei’s Cabinet spoke to attendees in the lead-up the President’s speech. Among those addressing the crowd were Cabinet Chief Diego Santilli, Deregulation & State Transformation Federico Sturzenegger, Foreign Minister Pablo Qurino and Deputy Economy Minister José Luis Daza. Economy Minister Luis Caputo did not attend due to a health problem.
Each official hailed President Milei’s leadership, defended the government’s achievements and called for support to maintain its course.
Milei used his speech to renew his now-customary attack on journalists and experts, almming the “analytical poverty of economists in the analyses they make” of economic data. He also questioned his plunging poll numbers, questioning comparisons between “surveys of 1,000 people” and official government data.
“One of the things I said was that I was going to put an end to inflation,” he said, before claiming that the consumer price index had risen by 129.7 percent under late former Néstor Kirchner, accelerated by 216.5 percent under ex-president Cristina Fernández, doubled under former president Mauricio Macri and accelerated by 292.9% during his predecessor Alberto Fernández’s administration. Under his own government, he claimed, inflation had fallen by 85 percent.
Talking up his administration’s achievements, the La Libertad Avanza leader painted himself as a growth expert, reiterating that “the economy is growing” and claiming it had expanded by 8.3 percent during his time in office.
“And if we strip out the drag left by Kirchnerism, in the first two years we accumulated an expansion of more than 10 percentage points,” he claimed.
Milei described the concept of “two-speed growth” as “idiocy” and a “monument to ignorance,” insisting: “This is an outrageous display of intellectual shallowness.”
“The growth process is not harmonious. Just as companies disappear, others emerge, and that happens because economic conditions have changed. There is a reallocation of resources,” the President explained.
Milei acknowledged that “the snapshot is horrible, but the film is still the best in Argentine history.”
“On the other side, there are politicians who want to break everything. I continue to trust Argentines who do not want to return to the past and become Cuba,” continued the President.
He then turned to Argentina’s declining birth rate and used the opportunity to attack the country’s abortion law.
“The madness of the green handkerchiefs and that passion for murdering children is costing us in terms of growth and the pension system,” he claimed.
He also described it as “stupid” to say that “people are not making it to the end of the month” or that technological progress destroys jobs, arguing that this was not what the data showed.
Along the same lines, he said Argentina remained a highly closed economy, describing it as “a prison”, and reiterated the need to retrain and transform sectors that had been exposed to competition from international markets.
‘Optimistic’
Opening the event, Susan Segal, president and CEO of Americas Society/Council of the Americas, delivered an optimistic message about Argentina and the region.
“I am optimistic about Argentina and about this moment for Latin America. We have never seen such an interesting convergence between what the world needs and what the region can offer,” said Segal.
She claimed that investors were beginning to look at Latin America “with different eyes”, describing the region as a peaceful part of the world, rich in resources and with the potential to play a more prominent role on the global stage.
Segal also highlighted the direction taken by Milei’s government, saying the president “understood what was needed,” which, she argued, was creating an opportunity that “goes far beyond a single government.”
In Segal’s view, Argentina could become one of Latin America’s engines of growth if it manages to maintain economic stability, deepen its openness and improve conditions for attracting investment.
— TIMES/NA/PERFIL
