By Victor Ego Ducrot on April 15, 2025 from Buenos Aires
Argentine unions are calling for more demonstrations this week. photo: Bill Hackwell
The stagnation driven by Donald Trump’s tariff policies, intended to save the dollar from collapse—the US debt and trade imbalance is measured in trillions—is global in nature, but will fall hardest on countries euphemistically referred to as developing or emerging.
Drums of war are beating across the planet, except in Latin America, for now. Just look at the EU talking about an initial investment of €80 billion in new weapons. Meanwhile, China remains unperturbed by Trump’s barbs and is responding tit for tat.
In this scenario, deeply in debt and isolated from the world by the atrocities spoken and committed by President Javier Milei—who knows only how to flatter Trump in an undignified manner—Argentina is on the brink of the precipice, and down below, in hell, the demons await the Argentines.
One could venture to say that the lunatic far-right government has entered its final stage, although it is true that the manner, form, and timing of the final outcome are still unknown.
But what is certain is that the indicators are growing in that direction. Pollsters cannot hide the fact that the president’s decline in image and social acceptance ratings has become an apparently irreversible trend.
This has been happening in recent weeks, following the episodes of the crypto-scam led by Milei and under the scrutiny of a US federal court; the brutal repression of protests by retirees and pensioners; and his recent statements on the Malvinas Islands in favor of the United Kingdom and in violation of the National Constitution.
Added to all this turmoil is the country’s excessive foreign debt. The dollars requested from the IMF are slow in arriving and, as a result, the Central Bank has exhausted its reserves due to systemic currency flight. A currency crisis and a crisis in the markets in general are just around the corner.
In addition, last weekend the president flew to one of Trump’s private residences in search of a photo opportunity and returned empty-handed, uttering unintelligible words about the effects of the White House’s tariff restrictions. Meanwhile, his foreign minister, Gerardo Werthein, a member of a family of bankers, occupies the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but only for the purpose of attending to his business interests, which are aimed at taking over one of the country’s largest telephone companies.
At the same time, Congress rejected the two candidates who, by irregular decree, had been proposed and appointed by the executive branch to join the Supreme Court of Justice. And as this article was being written, Parliament itself created an investigative commission on the crypto scam, in which Milei is the main suspect.
A 48-hour general strike called by the hitherto collaborationist CGT and other labor unions is planned for this week. And the main print media, TV, and digital sites are focused on predicting various national calamities; even those most allied with Milei’s fascist regime stammer without being able to articulate a convincing defense.
The other aspect of Argentina’s delicate political situation is the anomie and irresponsibility of the main opposition forces, a mantle that particularly fits Peronism in all its variants. With a few exceptions, such as this week when they rejected the candidates for the Court and approved the aforementioned investigative commission, these forces in Congress have been providing governability to the lunatic fascist regime.
In the middle of an election year—with partial elections for Congress and provincial legislatures—Kirchnerism, the hegemonic force in Peronism for the last 20 years, suffered what I call its first “exposed fracture.”
The governor of the province of Buenos Aires, the most populous and therefore decisive in national elections, Axel Kicilloff, decided to question the already damaged leadership of former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and strong turbulence is looming, especially since that province is Kirchnerist territory, or at least it has been until now. The questions remain open.
However, most of the population is oblivious to these political ups and downs, battered by government austerity measures, poverty, unemployment, and the high cost of living, all of which are greater than what is acknowledged in official and private statistics.
Without a seriously progressive or left-wing opposition with any real capacity to challenge the government, Argentine political life is adrift, and the survival of the lunatic fascist government is in the hands of forces that are not exactly popular.
Milei’s fate depends on how intra-bourgeois disputes are resolved within the bloc made up of decisive business groups in agriculture, mining, energy, telecommunications, media, technology, and some export industries, in a struggle that is not always transparent with the financial and speculative sectors, true experts in capital flight.
When business opportunities in some of these decisive sectors fall to a critical point, Milei and his sad troupe of unpresentable characters will be history, although the future of Argentine democracy will remain in a coma or at least in a state of dramatic uncertainty.
Finally, some sketches from the very depths of the Argentine abyss.
A madman, a tarot reader, and a talking dead dog are leading the country in the midst of a global tragedy. Those were more or less the words posted on social media by Carlos Ciappina, an Argentine academic, doctor of communication, and historian, colleague and classmate at the National University of La Plata (UNLP).
The madman, of course, is called Javier Milei. The tarot reader is his sister and strong voice in the government, Karina; and the dead dog that speaks from beyond the grave was called Conan.
But that is already well-known history. Perhaps less well known is that a surname, a family that belonged to the inner circle of former right-wing president Mauricio Macri, now controls Argentina’s economy and finances, the intelligence services, and a large part of the private businesses that enjoy the privileges granted to them by the Casa Rosada.
In October last year, our colleague Giselle Leclercq, from the Buenos Aires newspaper Perfil, published an interesting journalistic profile of the Caputos, a who’s who of this family that has always been linked to power.
On the day Javier Milei won the election, he took to the stage and thanked the young Santiago Caputo, whom he described as “the true architect” of his campaign. His name immediately caught the attention of the public: he was another member of a family that has been close to power for decades. Until then, the advisor was unknown to the general public, according to the article.
It adds: Santiago’s influence in the government is surprising. Although he does not hold any official position, he has a say in virtually all areas. Among the allies of the fascist lunatic, it is recognized that he is the one who wields power, amid constant turmoil and stumbling blocks with the tarot reader.
The other Caputo (Toto) was the one who signed Argentina’s largest debt in its history with the IMF on behalf of then-President Macri, and he is now repeating the same scheme under Milei’s mantle.
But there is a third. Nicolás “Nicky” Caputo, a lifelong friend of Macri and currently very active in his private businesses of all kinds, with the support of the government.
Santiago (with no previous experience in administration, a disciple of Ecuadorian consultant Jaime Durán Barba, always at the service of the right wing), Toto, and Nicky are not the only ones known… Francisco, one of the three brothers of the presidential advisor, is reportedly collaborating with the government in areas such as energy. The list of famous Caputos also includes Flavio and Rossana, the owners of “Caputo Hermanos,” the company that was implicated in the investigation into the attempted assassination of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, according to the text published by Perfil.
These are the main players in the gang surrounding the president, an improvised group of perverts, geeks, hustlers, white-collar thieves, people with mental health issues, mythomaniacs, irresponsible individuals, useless people, and opportunists, to use the words of one of the many critics who often write on social media.
And so we come to the end of this text, but not to the end of the Argentine tragedy.
Source: Cuba Periodistas, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English