A volatile and falsely repeated panorama

The images that are repeated are misleading. Scenes of violence before (and in) Congress; exchange tension; advances and micro -retrocesses in the fight against inflation and the value of dollar; Cristina Kirchner in the center of the ring; Mauricio Macri leading to his party, and a Javier Milei invincible and infallible. But it can be an imperfect reproduction of something that was and is no longer the same.

The imperative need to achieve some stability and be able to make solid projections in the medium and long term remains a utopia in Argentina.

Uncertainty is not only supported but deepened in recent weeks, beyond some anxiolytic received by the Government, such as the approval of the DNU on a new and imminent agreement with the IMPand that there has been no violence in the protest last Wednesday. The world also helps very little in everything that cares and impacts Argentina.

The time takes inexorable and leaves traces, although those scenes that simulate immutability still have some effect in a good part of the spectators, especially those who pay circumstantial attention to political and economic future or have a partial look, without registering the entire complex panorama.

Cristina Kirchner’s reinstallation in the last week can be one of those examples of mirage. She was as functional as Milei. One more time. But neither is the same.

Of different magnitude, both suffer some kind of wearalthough in the match the deterioration of the former president acquires sidereal dimensions. It is increasingly an anchor than a lighthouse. A reference that is blurred, even if it remains too visible and difficult to remove from the centrality of its space.

The withdrawal of the visa by the USA He allowed the former president to return to her favorite role as «popular» leader pursued by the powerful. The same as the rejection of the last judicial appeal that puts it before the Court to finish deciding on their personal freedom and its possible farewell of electoral powers. A combination of events that came to replace the star fight that insist on maintaining Cristina and Javier.

However, it was not something that either has precipitated. There are already too many things that escape the indomitable will of the former president and the variables that do not control or the projects whose concretion is complicated to the Milei Presidential Decisionism.

A former state department official who had a relevant role with Joe Biden He told a leader of Panperonismo with whom he shares friendship that nothing had to do with the Argentine situation and the link that Milei maintains with Donald Trump in the decision of Revoke Cristina’s visa and Máximo Kirchner.

He does not count for them that Milei is still liking polarization with an increasingly worn leader, questioned inside and outside his political force, and whose survival has the value for his external rivals to get the emergence of new actors to rebuild the political map and force his internal rivals to defend it, although many would like to deliver it. In addition, his permanence is the excuse that many find shameful mileists that pretend opponents not to question actions of the government and the president himself on issues that are (or) flags of his political action.

In any case, celebrate the role recovered by Cristina Kirchner is still a risky attitude, since the sole projection of her shadow moves investors looking for more safe climates. Systemic problems.

The reality indicates that the dynamics of the new time of the United States led to a decision that the previous Democratic government had frozen in 2023 not to precipitate a cataclysm in Argentine politics during the electoral year and while Sergio Massa He argued a negotiation with the IMF, with the support of several US officials.

The Trumpist State Department, they say, took advantage of the case, without any change in the criminal situation of Cristina Kirchner, to demonstrate that the United States did not revoke the visa for corruption cases only to former presidents of the Latin American right, as did in 2022 with the Paraguayan Horacio Cartés. In Washington everything (or almost everything) always works in a American code.

The conspiraid reading and the sense of political opportunity were not going to deprive Cristina to blame Milei of the Trumpist administration’s decision as much as victimized. One thing leads to the other. More when she has three pending and complicated stations ahead of overcoming.

On the one hand, there is the project CLEAN SHEET LAWthat the Senate continues to take. On the other hand, the intramurous conflict of Kirchnerism appears in its bastion of the province of Buenos Aires, which will only have one occasion solution for these elections, but will leave insurmountable injuries. Your relationship with Axel Kicillofwho was his political son, is broken without the possibility of returning to the times of maternal-filial trust, they say both in the Patria Institute and in La Plata.

Finally, the Court’s decision appears for the Cause Road. Although custom indicates that the highest court avoids political impact failures in electoral years, there are already too many uses and habits that have changed radically in recent times not to give anything for granted.

All that has reminiscences of yesteryear is nothing more than another remake failed. A little tragedy and quite farce or tragicomedy. Something similar happens to Milei.

To the president the relief of the last week did not leave him again in the luminous and immaculate stage that he transmitted at the beginning of the year. The passage through Davos and the scandal of cryptogate They put it on an muddy path that you can’t leave and left it too splashed. But complications are not only political and image.

The economy and finance do not take respite, beyond the inflationary response of February (everything indicates will be a parenthesis in the descending path) and of the exchange tension that in a week It was hard for him to lose some billion reserves that remain negative.

He according to the IMF which is taken for granted caused more tremors than satisfaction with the advancement of negotiations. The hurry, once again, of the Minister of Economy for giving everything closed ahead of time and its verbal complications in public (an old problem that drags from yesteryear) with respect to the exchange policy that would derive from the agreement, precipitated defensive movements of them to which he had advised them Liquidate dollars and cover their assets with financial investments in dollars.

It is not the first time that Luis Caputo He anticipates things that reality insists on delaying (or denying). Each trip undertaken last year to Washington was preceded by versions from its environment that announced an IMF disbursement by US $ 15,000 million. More or less what would achieve only 16 months later. For the worse, Uncle Caputo became a digital struggle, which earned the most enemy government than he needs and could have. Mileist’s ability to mistreat to those who are willing to help seems insurmountable.

Perhaps, his greatest success has been to put his vice minister to José Luis Dazawhich, finally, landed in Buenos Aires (without leaving its home in New York) to specify essential support with technical explanations, good manners and respect for its interlocutors (a rarity in this management). The deputy of the Civic Coalition explained him Juan Manuel López by justifying his vote in favor of the DNU on the still unknown agreement with the IMF.

However, the parliamentary free road did not clear all doubts. Not only in the exchange plane, where two days later the shocks followed. The real economy begins to give signals of restlessness for many economists and investorsmost of which prefers to warn it with reservation of its name for fear of reprisals.

For sample, it is worth telling the clarification made days after an important businessman, whose links transcend the Argentine borders, invited to a television program to comment on the economic future.

«I warn you that what I am going to say is little like what I really think. I will not put the interests of my company and my clients at risk.» I already had some ugly warnings and the same or the same has happened to some colleagues.he expressed to the surprise of the two journalists who listened to him, less surprised by brutal sincerity than for something that has been rumored for a good time. Freedom of expression is not an issue that worries only journalists.

There are already several issues in which the traffic light becomes yellow in the short and medium term, as many warn Economists and entrepreneurs. Among them, in addition to the modification of the exchange policy that would force the IMF and that it would have some impact on the appreciated Argentine weight and, consequently, on prices others are added with consequences in everyday life and public accounts.

The purchasing power begins to be a variable that weighs more and more for many Argentines, despite the sustained decrease in inflation. «Prices do not go up, but silver does not reach me»many participants of focus groups say, which led an acute consultant to say that «inflation may fall, but there is» inflation feeling ‘. «

Another item that causes more and more restlessness is employment: destruction of jobs and not creation of new peers as a trend. Opening of the Imports and increased local costs lead to more and more Argentines to do COppras abroad or are prevented from export. Parts of the same matter. Variables that alert trade and Argentine production and, consequently, also open questions about tax collection.

A remarkable case is that of the fishing industry that, due to a combination of factors, is leading to the exploiters of some species, such as prawns, are almost determined not to start the season not to work at a loss, with the consequent impact not only for companies in the sector, but also for workers and the treasury. They are not the only ones. A stage of greater social conflict and impact on local economies could be opened.

To this punctual scenario are added climatic contingencies and low international prices that affect the agricultural sector. Less complicated for companies in the energy sector, but as a threat of decline in fiscal income, the fall in the international price of oil, which would partially limited the great expected contribution of the boom of Muerta Vaca.

The world travels through one of the stages of greater transformation and instability of the last three decades. Argentina is not immunized and is very exposed. If the election year is, in itself, a strong supplier of uncertainty, the process of changes that crosses the Argentine politics and economy promise many surprises.

Falsely repeated scenarios can error. All auguries on electoral results and their consequences are provisional. Maybe, more than ever.