Council of the Americas: Massa lambasts Milei’s proposals

'Does anyone really believe that there are hedge funds that signed confidential contracts with a candidate to guarantee dollarization?'

Economy Minister and Unión por la Patria (UxP)’s presidential hopeful Sergio Massa lambasted far-right candidate Javier Milei’s main campaign proposals in his Council of the Americas conference address on Thursday afternoon.

According to Massa, in this year’s elections, “the fundamental discussion is whether Argentina is a country focused on raw materials or an industrialized one.” He called the elections a choice between “the outlook of a developing country versus the law of the jungle”.

Massa took aim at Milei’s trademark dollarization proposal, saying that losing the country’s currency would destroy the country’s industrial competitiveness.

“Where are the dollars for dollarization going to come from? Does anyone really believe that there are hedge funds that signed non-disclosure agreements with a candidate to guarantee dollarization?” the minister said, in reference to Milei’s unverified claims that he secured funds with unknown lenders in June.   

Massa also contested Milei’s proposal of leaving the Mercosur trade union and severing ties with China. “The first thing we have to know is that we would be breaking with our two most important markets.”

“When discussing the future of the country, I ask you to do simple math,” he asked. “They talk about dollarization, that we are breaking with China, with Brazil, with India. Who are we going to sell to?”

The minister also criticized Milei’s proposals revolving around the idea of “freeing the forces of the market.”

The minister also criticized the fact that “freeing market forces” is central to Milei’s campaign.

“The free market destroys competitiveness when it is not approached in terms of defining the strategic sectors of the economy,” Massa said. As an example, he asked the businesspeople at the conference to think about what would happen to Argentina’s pharmaceutical industry if its Indian counterpart had equal access to the local market without government protections.

However, he also threatened to “open up imports” in markets “where we see monopolistic or oligopolistic behavior” in order to promote competition. According to him, the government’s 22% devaluation last week provided the needed inflow of foreign currency to carry out this sort of measure — he also said that the devaluation was “imposed” by the IMF.

For this, he said that he would take advantage of the devaluation implemented last week which, according to him, helped generate an inflow of foreign currency. He also said the measure was “imposed” by the IMF.

The minister gave the speech after returning from a trip to Washington, where he met with IMF officials following the approval of the IMF Board to receive disbursements of US$7.5 billion. He said that the Fund had demanded a 100% devaluation and an exchange rate unification.

“What would the level of activity of those present be if we devalued by 100 percent?” he asked.

On his way out, Massa spoke briefly with the press and announced that the government would define new measures on Friday to address the impact of last week’s devaluation, aimed at “the most vulnerable sectors of society.”

“I am going to the Ministry where I have the team working and we will see from tomorrow which and how many measures we are launching, and what sectors they are covering,” he said.

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