MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Milei claims to be heading Argentina's “best Government in history”

The Libertarian administration's structural reforms will lead to zero inflation by mid-2025, Milei argued

Argentine President Javier Milei claimed Tuesday his administration surpasses Carlos Menem’s first term, previously considered Argentina’s most successful, due to faster inflation reduction and extensive structural reforms he hoped would lead to zero inflation by mid-2025.

During his speech at the IAEF (Instituto Argentino de Ejecutivos de Finanzas - Argentine Institute of Finance Executives), Milei underscored the structural reforms eight times larger than Menem’s.

In addition, he defended his government's alleged free exchange rate, dismissing claims of lagging, and criticized past government controls, while advocating for freedom to transact in any currency. He also announced plans to relax rules penalizing undeclared foreign currency use.

“We are the best government in history,” Milei stressed. “The best government in history had been Menem's first government, until we arrived,” he further noted. “Menem's first government is the achievement of convertibility to lower inflation and structural reforms,” he pointed out.

Regarding “the monetary nature of inflation,” he argued that “the price level of the economy is the quotient between the money supply and the demand for money, which is fixed; as the amount of money goes up, prices go up.”

Milei also spoke against the “econochantas” (inefficient economists) and insisted that “when we lifted the [currency exchange stocks] cepo, the econochantas baboons said that the dollar was going to go through the roof” alongside inflation. “We said no, because the amount of money has been fixed since the middle of last year,” he recalled.

“Since the politicians did not want to make the adjustment, they decided to swindle the Argentine people, at that time there were around 14 billion dollars in the Central Bank, which, in today's money, would be the friends of Clarín, Duhalde, Alfonsín and company, those who overthrew [former President] De la Rúa ended up swindling the Argentine people for 30 billion dollars.”