President Javier Miley He maintained that the Government has “many elements to be optimistic”, rescued some favorable data shown by the surveys, in the midst of a strong recession, and assured that When the stocks are opened, “Argentina is going to begin to take off very strongly.”
“First of all, although 70% of Argentines recognize that they are worse today. There is something that is very important: when we began the mandate in December, only 20% of Argentines believed that we were going to be better in the next six months. That number climbed to 30 in January. It climbed to 42 in February. Today it is at 50%, and “Half of Argentines believe that in the next six months we will be better,” indicated the president in the second part of an interview with Andrés Oppenheimer on CNN in Spanish. And he highlighted that in the surveys and opinion polls analyzed by the ruling party “the word that appears the most” is “hope.”
According to the President, the trap could be released once the Central Bank’s balance sheet is cleaned up and remunerated liabilities are eliminated. And he gave it a probable date, although without giving great details. “Our hope is that we can enter the second semester in that condition,” he said. And he added: “The IMF, when it does the math, says that we could reach the middle of the year, but that depends on the willingness of individuals to exchange securities.”
Along these lines, he said that there are many analysts who see a ‘V’ recovery. “When we arrived, the country risk was around 2900 basis points, today it is 1400. That is, the bonds went from 18 to 54 dollars,” he said. And he insisted: “The day we can open the stocks, open all the restrictions of the exchange market, the rebound that the Argentine economy is going to have is going to make it expand strongly.”.
However, he clarified: “I can’t take risks.. Because this is not a question of a paper academic I say I was wrong and I go and write another paper and I explain why I was wrong. Here, if I’m wrong, that will affect 47 million human beings. So. It is normal to be more cautious and that I have a higher level of risk aversion than I usually have on a regular basis. “If it was something that had to do with just myself, and it was something that would only impact me, I would have already moved on.”
Megaprisons
In another part of the interview, Javier Milei confirmed that one of the initiatives that the Government will carry out in the future is the construction of megaprisons in the style of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador to counteract the increase in drug crime in the country. Weeks ago, the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, met with the Salvadoran president. “We are thinking of building some prisons with 5,000 and 6,000 places.”Milei said.
He delved into the proposal: “There are prisons that were designed and built at a certain time in history, but the growth of the population caused it to become an urbanized area. So what are we thinking of doing? Sell those prisons to companies that are dedicated to Real Estate. And that company finances the construction of a new prison far from the city. And then We are going to a prison with greater security, better quality and better benefits, larger, and without spending a single peso”.
When asked about the way in which the construction would be implemented, he indicated that there should be no problems with approving it in Congress. “I would have to see how that is implemented, but in principle it should not have resistance. It seems to me that society is becoming aware that whoever makes them pays for them, and that works.”
International tour and trip to Ukraine
Later, Milei went into detail about the upcoming trips on his agenda as President to different countries from both Europa as USAbut focused on the support it will provide to Ukraine in the midst of the war against Russia.
“TWe have to travel for the G7 meetingfor which I greatly appreciate the president [Giorgia] Melons for having invited me. I also have to go to Madrid to receive the Juan de Mariana award. Then to Germany to receive the Hayek Medal of Honor. And then, on that same trip, I’m going to be trying to have a meeting with [Olaf] Scholz in Germany, [Emmanuel] Macron in France, and obviously my intention is to go visit him in [Volodimir] Zelensky in Ukraine,” he explained.
In that sense, he did not rule out that Argentina could send some type of military support to Ukraine more than two years after the war. “Governments are in contact. Our defense minister [Luis Petri] is in contact with the Ukrainian authorities We will help you in everything we can help you. There is going to be a forum in Defense of the freedom of Ukraine that will be held in Latin America and Zelensky asked me to hold it here. I told him yes, we are going to do it. And there are some forums where I was asked to participate in the defense of Ukraine and I am going to do it,” he anticipated.
In addition, he said that he will travel to the city of Miami in United States: “My sister and I are going to receive an award, who is an Ambassador of Light, on behalf of the Jewish community. He fills us with pride and he has to do with the defense of freedom. And also the defense of the values of the Jewish community.”