Argentina's President Milei faces test on his tough warning to protesters
NBCDec 30, 2023
Argentina: Protests Continue Over Milei's Deregulation Decree
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Image copyright: Tobias Skarlovnik/Getty Images News via Getty Images (Dec. 20, 2023)
The Facts
Hundreds of Argentines took to the streets nationwide for the second consecutive day on Thursday to rally against deregulatory measures that Pres. Javier Milei announced a day earlier — with clashes between security forces and protesters reported in the central province of Córdoba.
The all-around reforms — which are expected to face legal and political challenges — repeal regulations covering the housing rental market and land ownership, eliminate price controls, facilitate exports, and include steps to privatize all state-owned companies.
The Spin
Left narrative
Argentina's radical libertarian president is acting as if he were an absolute monarch, unlawfully using the emergency decree to bypass Congress and attack the rights of the working-class people. Ordinary citizens are finally waking up to their mistake in supporting his radical austerity platform in the elections.
Right narrative
Argentines have given Milei a clear mandate to liberalize the economy and cut the country's out-of-control public expenditure, and this is exactly what he's done. Yet, the very Peronists responsible for Argentina's economic crisis are now trying to create chaos not to allow his administration to get rid of the parasitic state so they can blame liberalism for their own failures.
