Milei, Javier

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      Javier Milei, a ‘Mini-Trump,’ Could Be Argentina’s Next President

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      He made his name disparaging people on television. He levels harsh attacks against critics online. He sports an unruly hairdo that has become a meme. And he is now the leader of his country’s far right.Donald J. Trump, and his rise to the American presidency in 2016, shares some striking similarities with the man behind the moment unfolding in Argentina, the nation’s new political sensation, Javier Milei.Mr. Milei, a libertarian economist and television pundit, was once seen as a sideshow in Argentina’s presidential race, not taken seriously by the news media or his opponents. Now — after a brash, outsider campaign based on a promise that he alone can fix the nation’s deep economic woes — he is the favorite to win the election outright on Sunday or head to a runoff next month.Mr. Milei, 52, has already upended the politics of this nation of 46 million. His pledges to eliminate Argentina’s central bank and ditch its currency for the U.S. dollar have dominated the national conversation, while also helping to fuel a further collapse in the value of the Argentine peso.But it has been his bellicose political style that has attracted comparisons with Mr. Trump, as well as widespread concern in Argentina and beyond about the damage his government could inflict on Latin America’s third-largest economy.Mr. Milei has attacked the press and the pope; declared climate change part of “the socialist agenda”; called China, Argentina’s second-largest trade partner, an “assassin”; pledged looser controls on guns; claimed he is the victim of voter fraud; questioned the most recent presidential elections in the United States and Brazil; and suggested that the far-right riots that followed those votes were leftist plots.Mr. Milei surrounded by supporters in Salta, Argentina. His brash, outsider campaign has made him a favorite in Sunday’s election. Sarah Pabst for The New York Times“He is quite clearly a mini-Trump,” said Federico Finchelstein, an Argentine who chairs the history department at the New School in New York and studies the far right around the world.Mr. Milei, Mr. Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former president, are all leading practitioners of the modern strain of far-right politics, Mr. Finchelstein said, marked by vulgarity, attacks on institutions, discrediting of the news media, distrust of science, a cult of personality and narcissism.“Trump is an icon of this new form of extreme populism,” Mr. Finchelstein said. “And Milei wants to emulate him.”Mr. Milei has embraced comparisons to Mr. Trump, whom he has called “one of the best presidents in the history of the United States.” He has worn “Make Argentina Great Again” hats and, much like Mr. Trump, waged his campaign largely on social media. And in the two months before Sunday’s vote, he granted an interview to one American broadcast personality: the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.Mr. Milei’s campaign declined repeated requests for an interview with The New York Times.Supporters of Mr. Milei in the headquarters of his party in Salta. Mr. Milei’s use of social media has made him especially popular among younger Argentines.Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesWith two master’s degrees in economics, Mr. Milei can sound professorial at times, opining on monetary policy and a strain of libertarianism he follows called anarcho-capitalism.He has called the state “a criminal organization” that collects taxes “at gunpoint.” And he says he is driven by a mission to shrink government and remove it from people’s lives, starting with Argentina’s central bank.His libertarian ideals have also made him less conservative on some social issues. He has said that as long as the state doesn’t have to pay for it, he could support drug legalization, open immigration, sex work, transgender rights, same-sex marriage and selling organs.Abortion, however, he calls “murder” and promises to put it to a referendum in Argentina, where it has been legal since 2020.Mr. Milei surprised pollsters in August when he won Argentina’s open primaries with about 30 percent of the vote. He has since led his two main challengers in the polls: Sergio Massa, Argentina’s center-left economy minister; and Patricia Bullrich, a right-wing former security minister.Mr. Milei has received nearly blanket news coverage during the campaign, both for his radical economic proposals and his eccentric personality. He is a self-proclaimed tantric-sex teacher with five cloned mastiff dogs. His girlfriend is a professional impersonator of one of his political archrivals. And his campaign manager and chief political adviser is his sister.A dollar note with Donald J. Trump’s image in the office of one of Mr. Milei’s advisers. The candidate has praised Mr. Trump’s tenure as president in the United States. Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesLike Mr. Trump, he speaks about the importance of image, telling Mr. Carlson that his past as a semipro soccer goalie and a singer in a Rolling Stones cover band “make for an attractive television product.” Mr. Milei makes nearly the same furrowed-brow, pursed-lip look for every selfie with voters, also calling to mind Mr. Trump.Mr. Milei’s signature look — a leather jacket, an untamable mop of hair and long sideburns — is designed to conjure the comic-book character Wolverine, according to Lilia Lemoine, a professional cosplay performer who is Mr. Milei’s stylist and is running for Congress on his ticket. Because, like Wolverine, she said, “he is an antihero.”The result is a cultlike following. At a recent event in Salta, a city in Argentina’s mountainous northwest, Mr. Milei rode in a truck bed as thousands of voters pushed in for a closer look. Supporters wore messy wigs, passed out fake $100 bills with his face and displayed art of his dogs, four of which are named for conservative economists.“Yes, everyone describes him as crazy, for everything, but who better than a crazy person to move the country forward?” said María Luisa Mamani, 57, a butcher-shop owner. “Because the sane ones didn’t do anything.”Argentines have weathered one of the country’s worst financial crises.Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesMr. Milei appeared briefly but did not speak. Instead, the event was largely a stage for social-media content created by unpaid college-age influencers who travel with Mr. Milei and film him.They have helped him build an enormous online presence and intense youth following. (The legal voting age in Argentina is 16.) Luján López Villa, 20, a high school senior in the small town of Chicoana, said Mr. Milei had near-unanimous support among her classmates, largely because he was the “cool” candidate, despite warnings from teachers that his plans to dollarize the economy are dangerous.“They want to change our minds,” she said. “We’re going to keep following him.”It is no surprise that Argentines are eager for change. Decades of economic mismanagement, much of it in the hands of Mr. Massa’s incumbent Peronist party, have plunged Argentina into a big financial hole.In April 2020, at the start of the pandemic, $1 bought about 80 pesos; one day last week, $1 bought more than 1,000 pesos. Those figures are under an unofficial exchange rate that best reflects the market’s view of the peso, part of a byzantine system of currency controls the government uses to try to keep U.S. dollars in the country.Supporters of Mr. Milei in Salta. He wants to shrink government, starting with getting rid of Argentina’s central bank.Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesMr. Milei wants to discard those rules as president, partly by switching to dollars.Both Mr. Milei and economists have said that dollarizing the economy will most likely require tens of billions of dollars, but it is not clear where Argentina could get such an investment. The country is struggling to pay a $44 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund. Mr. Milei would also not have much congressional support for dollarization, though he has said that he would put the issue to a national referendum.Emmanuel Alvarez Agis, Argentina’s former deputy economy minister under a leftist administration, said that if Mr. Milei could dollarize, it would mostly solve inflation — but produce a host of other problems, including a decrease in real wages, higher unemployment and less flexibility to soften the effects of economic downturns.Mr. Milei has also promised a pro-market, small-government overhaul, including pledges to: lower taxes; slash regulations; privatize state industries; shift public education to a voucher-based system and public health care to insurance based; reduce the number of federal ministries to eight from 18; and cut federal spending by 15 percent of Argentina’s gross domestic product.Such deep spending cuts would require significant reductions to pensions, education and public safety, Mr. Alvarez Agis said. “I don’t think that they are discussing numbers in a serious way,” he said.Campaign signs in Salta for another top candidate in Sunday’s election, Sergio Massa, Argentina’s center-left economy minister.Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesAfter months of campaigning by the candidates, Sunday will test whether voters are ready to take a chance on Mr. Milei. He could win the election outright with 45 percent of the vote, or 40 percent with a margin of at least 10 percentage points. If no candidate reaches any of those thresholds, the race will go to a runoff on Nov. 19 between the top two finishers.Even though Mr. Milei won the primary, he still claimed fraud, saying rivals stole his parties’ ballots from polling stations, preventing citizens from voting for him. Mr. Milei also said his party’s ballots were found in the trash at a school. His party did not provide any evidence.Mr. Milei said his party had complained to election officials, but election officials disputed that.“There was no complaint or challenge, nor was there any systematic ballot theft,” Argentina’s electoral court said in a statement. “We are concerned that such statements are made without accompanying legal filings to investigate.”Mr. Milei’s campaign said it had recruited 100,000 volunteers to monitor polling stations on Election Day. But in a television interview on Thursday, Mr. Milei said he was still worried about stolen votes.He claimed that the alleged fraud in the primaries had cost him at least several percentage points of support. “Some say two and a half points, others say three, and others say five,” he said. “Whatever the number is, it may be decisive.”Natalie Alcoba More

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      Javier Milei and His 5 Cloned Dogs in Argentina’s Election

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      Javier Milei, a far-right libertarian, might soon be Argentina’s next president. He credits his cloned “four-legged children.”After finishing a surprising first in Argentina’s presidential primaries in August, Javier Milei grabbed a microphone in front of a raucous crowd and thanked Conan, Murray, Milton, Robert and Lucas.“Who else?” he said. “My four-legged children.”Mr. Milei, a far-right libertarian who is the favorite in Argentina’s presidential election on Sunday, would head to the country’s presidential offices, the Casa Rosada, not with a spouse and children, but with five mastiffs he has long called his children.He is, of course, speaking figuratively. Technically speaking, however, those five dogs are not traditional offspring of any animal. They are genetic copies of Mr. Milei’s former dog, also named Conan, and were created in a laboratory in upstate New York.Mr. Milei’s five cloned dogs have become objects of fascination in Argentina’s presidential election and a window into his unusual candidacy. For months the national debate has revolved around his ascent, his eccentric personality and his radical economic proposals — like eliminating Argentina’s central bank and replacing its currency with the U.S. dollar — to save the nation of 46 million from one of its worst financial crises in decades.Mr. Milei has made his original dog, Conan, named for the movie “Conan the Barbarian,” a central player in his back story, saying the dog saved his life and spent numerous Christmases alone with him when he felt abandoned by others.He has made the cloned dogs symbols of his libertarian ideals by naming four of them for three conservative American economists: Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman and Robert Lucas.And at his rallies, he has held aloft paintings of his dogs, which he passes out to the crowd before picking up a roaring chain saw, his go-to metaphor for the deep cuts he wants to deliver to the Argentine government.A supporter holding a replica of a $100 bill featuring Mr. Milei with a chain saw. The tool is a symbol of the deep cuts Mr. Milei wants to make to the Argentine government.Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesMr. Milei has also signaled that cloning could find a place in his government. Last month he said that, if elected, he would appoint an Argentine scientist who has dedicated his career to cloning animals as the chairman of an influential national scientific council.“He is considered the national cloner,” Mr. Milei said of the scientist, Daniel Salamone. “This is the future.” Mr. Milei’s scientific beliefs, including denying humans’ role in climate change, have worried scientists.Mr. Milei is the front-runner in Sunday’s election, but polls suggest that he will not receive enough votes to win outright and avoid a runoff in November.Mr. Milei’s cloned dogs are also an example of a growing trend among wealthy pet owners that is raising tricky ethical questions.A handful of companies in the United States, China and South Korea have cloned hundreds of dogs since the first cloned canine in 2005. Barbra Streisand owns two clones of her Coton de Tulear, while Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg have three clones of their Jack Russell terriers.To clone his dogs, Mr. Milei hired PerPETuate, a company run by Ron Gillespie, 75, who got his start in the world of livestock insemination and now runs a “genetic preservation” firm from the Big Island of Hawaii.Mr. Gillespie said he received an email from Mr. Milei in 2014, saying he was interested in cloning Conan. “He said that this dog was his life,” Mr. Gillespie said.For $1,200, Mr. Milei sent a sample of Conan’s tissue to Mr. Gillespie’s business partners, scientists at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass., who used that tissue to grow cells full of Conan’s DNA and then cryogenically freeze them. (Some cells remain frozen in Worcester.)The website of PerPETuate prominently features Mr. Milei’s cloned dogs.In 2018, after Conan died, Mr. Milei reached out again. He was ready to pay the $50,000, which was the cost of a procedure that would guarantee him at least one clone.Cloning one dog usually requires more than 100 eggs — or about a year’s worth of eggs from five to 10 canines — which are surgically harvested from donor dogs, Mr. Gillespie said.Dog-cloning technology is largely the same since Dolly the sheep became the first mammal clone in 1997. Scientists remove the nucleus from each donor egg cell, wiping them clean of all their DNA. Into those empty eggs, the scientists insert the cells full of DNA of the animal being cloned.“Then we stimulate the egg cell with a shot of electricity, and that forms a one-cell embryo that immediately begins to multiply,” Mr. Gillespie said.Ten to 15 of those embryos — based fully on the DNA from the dog being cloned — are then implanted into the uterus of a surrogate dog.Some bioethicists and animal-welfare groups question the ethics of pet cloning, both for its use of animals to donate eggs and carry cloned fetuses, as well as the fact that there are already millions of unwanted pets.Jessica Pierce, a bioethicist who studies the relationship between humans and dogs, has said cloning contributes to the creation of “a canine underclass” of surrogates that live sometimes difficult lives to produce clones. “I don’t think it’s too strong to call what we do to reproductive labor dogs a form of incarceration,” she said.Pet cloning companies reject that characterization, saying many surrogate dogs are adopted by loving families.Ms. Pierce said cloning also destroys more embryos than typical dog pregnancies. She said that seemingly puts it at odds with the beliefs of Mr. Milei, who has promised to try to ban abortion because he says life begins at fertilization.Mr. Milei’s campaign declined to comment or make him available for an interview.To clone Mr. Milei’s dogs, Mr. Gillespie contracted ViaGen Pets, based outside Austin, Texas, the only American company cloning dogs. ViaGen declined to say how many eggs it used to clone Conan.ViaGen said that in nearly three out of four cases, cloning a dog produces just one clone.In Mr. Milei’s case, in 2018, it produced five.“He was ecstatic,” Mr. Gillespie said. Once the clones arrived in Argentina, one began responding to “Conan” and seemed to enjoy the same television show as Mr. Milei’s previous dog, so Mr. Milei named the clone Conan, Mr. Gillespie said Mr. Milei told him.Conan “is literally a son to me,” Mr. Milei told an Argentine news site in 2018. The other four clones “are like my grandchildren.”He also has said the dogs are a handful. “My house is like Kosovo,” he said on television in 2018. “In two weeks, they’ve eaten almost four armchairs.” Five years later, he has said the largest of the pack weighs 220 pounds.Mr. Milei’s cloned dogs are a window into his unusual candidacy — and an example of a growing trend among wealthy pet owners that is raising tricky ethical questions.Marcelo Dubini/CarasOn the campaign trail, Mr. Milei has largely kept the dogs at a day care, out of sight. But they have remained a part of the debate.Sergio Massa, Argentina’s economic minister who is polling just behind Mr. Milei in Sunday’s vote, criticized Mr. Milei’s dismissal of global warming by saying that parents are worried about the planet’s future, unlike those “who speak to their dogs like they were their kids.”Argentine news outlets have also reported that Mr. Milei has privately said that he has received strategic advice from his dogs.When asked whether he, in fact, takes advice from his dogs, Mr. Milei has remained coy.“What I do inside my house is my problem,” he told the Spanish newspaper El País. At the closing event of his campaign on Wednesday night, he called his dogs “the best strategists in the world.”Celia Melamed, an Argentine veterinarian who runs a workshop on communicating with animals, said one of her students has been Karina Milei, Mr. Milei’s sister and campaign manager.Ms. Melamed said she can feel the emotions of animals through a sort of metaphysical connection. “If I connect with an animal and it’s afraid, I feel the fear in my body,” she said. “It seems esoteric, and perhaps it is, because so far science has not dealt with this.”Mr. Gillespie, the cloning entrepreneur in Hawaii, said that since learning on Facebook that his client was a politician, he had watched Mr. Milei’s rise with fascination.“As I tell my wife,” he said, “I don’t have a vote in the Argentine election, but I do have five dogs in the race.”Lucía Cholakian Herrera More

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      Los cinco clones de la elección argentina

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      Javier Milei, un candidato libertario de extrema derecha, podría ser el próximo presidente de Argentina. Él le da crédito a sus “hijitos de cuatro patas” clonados.Después de alcanzar un sorprendente primer lugar en las elecciones primarias presidenciales de Argentina en agosto, Javier Milei tomó un micrófono frente a una ruidosa multitud y le agradeció a Conan, Murray, Milton, Robert y Lucas.“Y se imaginarán a quienes también”, dijo. “¡A mis hijitos de cuatro patas!”.Milei, un libertario de extrema derecha que es el favorito en las elecciones presidenciales de Argentina del domingo, no se mudaría a la Casa Rosada —la residencia presidencial del país— con pareja e hijos, sino con cinco mastines a los que desde hace tiempo considera como sus hijos.Habla, por supuesto, en sentido figurado. Técnicamente hablando, esos cinco perros no son descendientes tradicionales de ningún animal. Son copias genéticas de un perro que tuvo Milei, que también se llamaba Conan, y fueron creados en un laboratorio ubicado al norte del estado de Nueva York.Los cinco perros clonados se han convertido en objeto de fascinación en las elecciones presidenciales de Argentina, que durante meses han girado en torno al ascenso de Milei, su excéntrica personalidad y sus radicales propuestas económicas —como eliminar el banco central de Argentina y sustituir su moneda por el dólar estadounidense— para salvar la país de 46 millones de habitantes de una de sus peores crisis financieras en décadas.Milei ha hecho de su perro original, Conan, llamado así por la película Conan el Bárbaro, un personaje central de su narrativa personal, al decir que le salvó la vida y pasó una decena de Navidades solo con él cuando se sintió abandonado por otras personas.Ha convertido a los perros clonados en símbolos de sus ideales libertarios, al bautizar a cuatro de ellos con el nombre de tres economistas conservadores estadounidenses: Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman y Robert Lucas.Y en sus mítines ha sostenido cuadros de sus perros, que reparte entre la multitud antes de tomar una motosierra estruendosa, su metáfora predilecta de los profundos recortes que quiere asestar al gobierno argentino.Un partidario sostiene una réplica de un billete de 100 dólares que muestra a Milei con una motosierra. La herramienta es un símbolo de los profundos recortes que Milei quiere hacerle al gobierno argentino.Sarah Pabst para The New York TimesMilei también ha señalado que la clonación podría tener cabida en su gobierno. El mes pasado dijo que, si ganaba las elecciones, nombraría presidente de un influyente consejo científico nacional a un científico argentino que ha dedicado su carrera a la clonación de animales.“Es considerado el clonador nacional”, dijo Milei sobre el científico, Daniel Salamone. “Es el futuro”. Las creencias científicas de Milei, incluida la negación del papel de los humanos en el cambio climático, han preocupado a los investigadores.Aunque Milei es el favorito, es posible que no logre los votos necesarios para evitar una segunda vuelta en noviembre.Los perros clonados de Milei son una ventana abierta a su insólita candidatura, y un ejemplo de una tendencia creciente entre adinerados propietarios de mascotas que está planteando delicadas cuestiones éticas.Un grupo de empresas de Estados Unidos, China y Corea del Sur han clonado cientos de perros desde la primera clonación canina en 2005. Barbra Streisand es dueña de dos clones de su Coton de Tulear, mientras que Barry Diller y Diane von Furstenberg tienen tres clones de su Jack Russell terrier.Para clonar a sus perros, Milei contrató a PerPETuate, una empresa dirigida por Ron Gillespie, de 75 años, que empezó en el mundo de la inseminación de ganado y ahora dirige una empresa de “preservación genética” desde Hawái.Gillespie dijo que recibió un correo electrónico de Milei en 2014, diciendo que estaba interesado en clonar a Conan. “Dijo que este perro era su vida”, dijo Gillespie.Por 1200 dólares, Milei envió una muestra de tejido de Conan a los socios comerciales de Gillespie, científicos de la Universidad Politécnica de Worcester, en Worcester, Massachusetts, que usaron ese tejido para cultivar células llenas del ADN de Conan y luego congelarlas criogénicamente. (Algunas células permanecen congeladas en Worcester).El sitio web de PerPETuate destaca los perros clonados de Milei.En 2018, tras la muerte de Conan, Milei volvió a llamarlo. Estaba dispuesto a pagar los 50.000 dólares del procedimiento que le garantizaría, al menos, un clon.La clonación de un perro normalmente requiere más de 100 óvulos —o el equivalente a un año de producción de óvulos de cinco a 10 perras— que se extraen quirúrgicamente de donantes, dijo Gillespie.La tecnología de clonación de perros es prácticamente la misma desde que la oveja Dolly se convirtió en el primer mamífero clonado en 1997. Los científicos extraen el núcleo de cada óvulo donado, limpiándolos de todo su ADN. En esos óvulos vacíos, los científicos insertan las células llenas de ADN del animal que se va a clonar.“Luego estimulamos el óvulo con un golpe de electricidad, que forma un embrión unicelular que empieza a multiplicarse inmediatamente”, explica Gillespie.Entre 10 y 15 de esos embriones —basados totalmente en el ADN del perro clonado— se implantan en el útero de una perra que será la madre subrogada.Algunos especialistas en bioética y grupos de defensa de los animales cuestionan la ética de la clonación de mascotas, tanto por el uso de animales para donar óvulos y gestar fetos clonados, como por el hecho de que ya hay millones de mascotas no deseadas.Jessica Pierce, bioeticista que estudia la relación entre humanos y perros, ha dicho que la clonación contribuye a la creación de “una subclase canina” que a veces experimenta vidas difíciles para producir clones. “No creo que sea demasiado fuerte calificar lo que hacemos con los perros reproductores como una forma de encarcelamiento”, afirma.Las empresas de clonación de mascotas rechazan esa descripción, y afirman que muchas perras que ejercen de madres subrogadas son adoptadas por familias cariñosas.Pierce dijo que la clonación también destruye más embriones que los embarazos típicos de perros, lo que parece contraponerse con las creencias de Milei, que ha prometido intentar prohibir el aborto porque dice que la vida comienza en la fecundación.La campaña de Milei se abstuvo de hacer comentarios y de permitir una entrevista con el candidato.Para clonar a los perros de Milei, Gillespie contrató a ViaGen Pets, con sede a las afueras de Austin, Texas, la única empresa estadounidense que clona perros. ViaGen no quiso decir cuántos óvulos usó para clonar a Conan.ViaGen dijo que en casi tres de cada cuatro casos, la clonación de un perro produce un solo clon.En el caso de Milei, en 2018, produjo cinco.“Estaba eufórico”, dijo Gillespie. Cuando los clones llegaron a Argentina, uno comenzó a responder al nombre de “Conan” y parecía disfrutar del mismo programa de televisión que el perro anterior, por lo que Milei lo bautizó como Conan, dijo Gillespie según lo que le contó Milei.Conan es “literalmente un hijo para mí”, dijo Milei a un sitio de noticias argentino en 2018. Los otros cuatro clones “son como mis nietos”.También ha dicho que los perros son revoltosos. “Mi casa es Kosovo”, dijo poco después de recibir a los animales. “En dos semanas, se comieron casi cuatro sillones”. Cinco años después, ha dicho que el mayor de la camada pesa casi 100 kilos.Los perros clonados de Milei son una ventana abierta a su insólita candidatura, y un ejemplo de una tendencia creciente entre adinerados propietarios de mascotas que está planteando delicadas cuestiones éticas.Marcelo Dubini/CarasDurante la campaña, Milei ha mantenido a los perros en una guardería, apartados del ojo público. Pero siguen formando parte del debate.Sergio Massa, ministro de Economía de Argentina, que se sitúa justo por detrás de Milei en la votación del domingo, criticó la negación de Milei del papel de los humanos en el cambio climático, al decir que los padres están preocupados por el futuro del planeta, a diferencia de quienes “le hablan a los perros tratándolos como hijos”.Los medios de comunicación argentinos también han publicado que Milei ha dicho en privado que ha recibido consejos estratégicos de sus perros.Cuando se le ha preguntado si, de hecho, recibe consejos de sus perros, Milei se ha mostrado esquivo.“Lo que yo haga puertas adentro de mi casa es problema mío,” declaró al diario español El País. En el evento de cierre de su campaña, el miércoles por la noche, llamó a sus perros “los mejores estrategas del mundo.”Celia Melamed, veterinaria argentina que dirige un taller de comunicación con animales, dijo que una de sus alumnas ha sido Karina Milei, hermana del candidato y directora de su campaña.Melamed dijo que puede sentir las emociones de los animales a través de una especie de conexión metafísica. “Si conecto con un animal y tiene miedo, siento miedo en el cuerpo”, dijo. “Parece esotérico, y quizás lo sea”.Gillespie, el empresario de la clonación en Hawái, dijo que desde que se enteró de que su cliente era un político tras añadirlo como amigo en Facebook, ha observado el ascenso de Milei con fascinación.“Como le digo a mi esposa”, dijo, “no tengo voto en las elecciones argentinas, pero sí cinco perros en la contienda”.Lucía Cholakian Herrera More

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      Javier Milei, el candidato de Argentina que ha insultado al papa

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      El candidato favorito para ser el próximo presidente de Argentina tiene un largo historial de ataques contra uno de sus compatriotas más famosos.Javier Milei, un libertario de extrema derecha que lidera las encuestas en las elecciones presidenciales de Argentina este mes, ha hecho muchas declaraciones polémicas en los últimos años como cuando afirmó que los humanos no causaron el cambio climático, cuando dijo que la gente debería poder vender sus órganos o cuando aseveró que la moneda de su país “no sirve ni para abono”.Pero, para muchos argentinos, ha hecho algo mucho peor: atacar al papa.En 2020, Milei, quien se identifica como católico, calificó al papa Francisco de “imbécil” y dijo que “es el representante del maligno en la Tierra”. El año pasado, Milei dijo que el papa siempre está “parado del lado del mal” porque apoya los impuestos. Y el mes pasado, en una entrevista con el expresentador de Fox News Tucker Carlson, Milei dijo que el papa “tiene afinidad por los comunistas asesinos” y viola los Diez Mandamientos al defender la “justicia social”.Son palabras atrevidas para un hombre que intenta ser el presidente de Argentina, donde casi dos de cada tres personas se identifican como católicas, donde el Estado es oficialmente católico y el papa argentino es, para muchos, un héroe nacional.Pero Milei —quien cantó en una banda que tocaba versiones de los Rolling Stones, además de ser un economista libertario, comentarista de televisión y político— no es el típico candidato presidencial.Se ha postulado con poca estructura de partido a su alrededor. Ha prometido diezmar el gobierno que aspira a dirigir. Promete fuertes recortes en los servicios sociales. Quiere deshacerse de la moneda nacional.Y en vez de hacer campaña con su esposa e hijos, la familia inmediata de Milei está formada por su hermana (que dirige su campaña), su novia (una actriz que se hizo famosa por imitar a su archirrival política) y sus cinco perros mastín (que son clones de su anterior perro).El planteamiento es poco ortodoxo, pero funciona. En agosto, Milei ganó las primarias abiertas del país con el 30 por ciento de los votos, por delante de los candidatos del partido de centroizquierda que gobierna el país y del partido conservador tradicional. Desde entonces, ha seguido liderando las encuestas y los analistas dicen que es probable que logre los votos necesarios en las elecciones del domingo para pasar a una segunda vuelta o ganar los comicios.Pero sus comentarios del pasado aún lo persiguen.“Habló mal del papa”, dijo María Vera, de 47 años, vendedora de empanadas en una villa miseria llamada Villa 21-24, en el sur de Buenos Aires. “Si Milei no quiere tener respeto al padre, no sé a quién”. Ella no va a votar por él, dijo.En una carretera que conduce a un barrio popular, las paredes estaban cubiertas de carteles con el rostro del papa y un mensaje claro: “Milei lo odia. El pueblo lo ama. ¿Vos dónde te parás?”.Carteles en una villa ensalzando al papa y afirmando que Milei lo odia.Sarah Pabst para The New York TimesEl Vaticano ha guardado silencio sobre el asunto y no respondió a una solicitud de comentarios. Pero en Argentina, los líderes eclesiásticos están contratacando.El mes pasado, algunos de los principales sacerdotes católicos de Argentina organizaron una misa en la Villa 21-24 para expiar los “insultos indignos” de Milei hacia el papa. Levantaron un altar afuera de la iglesia y 30 sacerdotes leyeron una declaración de apoyo al papa Francisco, mientras los feligreses llenaban la calle.El líder de la iglesia, el padre Lorenzo de Vedia, conocido como padre Toto, dijo que gran parte de su rebaño sigue sacando a relucir los comentarios de Milei. Afirmó que incluso la gente que no está tan involucrada en la vida cotidiana de la Iglesia, está ofendida, todavía más que “tiene posibilidad de ser presidente”, dijo.Sus oponentes han intentado aprovechar la polémica.Sergio Massa, ministro de Economía argentino, que aparece en las encuestas en segundo lugar, después de Milei, aprovechó su única oportunidad de interpelarlo durante un debate celebrado este mes para preguntarle sobre el papa. “Ofendiste al jefe de la Iglesia” , le dijo. “Quiero pedirte que aproveches estos 45 segundos para pedirle perdón al papa, que es el argentino más importante de la historia”.Milei trató de desestimar sus comentarios diciendo que los hizo antes de entrar en política, aunque varios han sido hechos desde que fue elegido para el Congreso en 2021. También dijo que se había disculpado con el papa, aunque el Times no pudo encontrar un registro de eso y su campaña no pudo proporcionar detalles específicos.“Si me equivoco, no tengo problema en repetir que estoy arrepentido”, dijo Milei a su oponente en el debate. “Dejá de chicanear y dedicate a bajar la inflación”.El padre Lorenzo de Vedia en la iglesia de la que es párroco en la Villa 21-24 de Buenos Aires. Dijo que sus feligreses se habían sentido ofendidos por los comentarios de Milei sobre el papa.Sarah Pabst para The New York TimesAlgunas personas que alguna vez fueron cercanas a Milei han criticado sus comentarios sobre el papa. Eduardo Eurnekian, uno de los empresarios más prominentes de Argentina y antiguo jefe de Milei cuando era economista dijo en una entrevista de radio que los comentarios de Milei “están completamente fuera de lugar”, y añadió: “El papa es el papa, tiene una responsabilidad enorme y además hace 2000 años que estamos respetando la figura por sus principios religiosos y sus ideas”.Pero otras personas —y votantes— parecen menos inquietas con sus declaraciones.En la pequeña localidad de Chicoana, al norte de Argentina, Daniel Mamani, de 64 años, ha representado por más de una década a Jesucristo en las celebraciones de Pascua de la población.Aunque los comentarios de Milei sobre el papa lo hicieron sentir incómodo, dijo, tiene la intención de votar por él porque el país necesita un cambio. “Tendrá que pagar por sus deudas, ¿no? O sea, con el Señor de arriba”, dijo Mamani, un mecánico. “Me interesa en la parte que nos traiga a la Argentina un bienestar”.Daniel Mamani, un mecánico, afirma que planea votar por Milei pese a las opiniones del candidato sobre el papa.Sarah Pabst para The New York TimesLilia Lemoine, amiga de Milei y peluquera que se postula al Congreso en su partido, dijo que ella y Milei han hablado durante mucho tiempo sobre lo que describió como las posiciones izquierdistas del papa.“Pienso exactamente lo mismo que él”, dijo refiriéndose a Milei. El papa “apoya el comunismo y la ideología de género, y no creo que en eso consista el catolicismo”. Y añadió: “Javier se disculpó por lo que dijo, pero yo no lo haría”.Lemoine dijo que Milei también se había ido alejando de la Iglesia católica de otras maneras. Afirmó que él “ahora estudia cábala”, una forma de misticismo judío. “Se hizo muy amigo de un par de rabinos”.De hecho, después de que Milei ganara un escaño en el Congreso de Argentina en 2021, varios medios de comunicación argentinos lo citaron diciendo que estaba considerando convertirse al judaísmo y que aspiraba a “llegar a ser el primer presidente judío de la historia argentina”. La campaña de Milei negó que hubiera dicho eso.En agosto, en una entrevista con el diario argentino La Nación, Milei dijo que, en muchos sentidos, se sentía judío. “No voy a la iglesia, voy al templo’’, dijo. “No hablo con sacerdotes, tengo un rabino de cabecera y estudio la Torá. Se me reconoce internacionalmente como amigo de Israel y como estudioso de la Torá”. El mes pasado, Milei dijo que fue a Miami a pasar el sabbat con amigos y luego voló a Nueva York para reunirse con un rabino.Sin embargo, ha seguido describiéndose como católico, y ha apostado por posiciones más en línea con la política del Vaticano que sus oponentes, incluyendo el objetivo de prohibir el aborto, que fue legalizado en Argentina en 2020.El papa Francisco nació como Jorge Mario Bergoglio en Buenos Aires en 1936. Desde 1998 hasta su elección como papa en 2013, fue el más alto funcionario católico de Argentina, conocido por su trabajo con los pobres.El papa Francisco, entonces cardenal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, en el metro de Buenos Aires en 2008. Es el primer papa del continente americano.Pablo Leguizamon/Associated PressNo es la primera vez que el papa ha tenido tensiones con algún político. Su firme apoyo a las posiciones del Vaticano en cuestiones sociales como el aborto, el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo y las adopciones por parte de parejas homosexuales, también lo convirtieron en una especie de rival político de Néstor Kirchner y Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, expresidentes de izquierda de Argentina.En 2010, cuando el gobierno de Cristina Fernández de Kirchner apoyó la legalización del matrimonio igualitario, Francisco, que aún no era papa, calificó la ley como “una maniobra del diablo”. Kirchner replicó que la postura de la Iglesia era “medieval”.Las críticas de Milei han sido mucho más duras. Ha llamado al papa Francisco “zurdo asqueroso”, “comunista impresentable” y un “potato” (el nombre en inglés del tubérculo papa).Durante sus 10 años como el primer papa del continente americano, Francisco ha visitado todos los países vecinos de Argentina, pero no ha regresado a su patria. Se ha especulado ampliamente que ha evitado su país de origen para mantenerse al margen de su política polarizante.Pero Francisco afirmó que planea volver a casa el próximo año.¿Quién podría darle la bienvenida? Milei.Natalie Alcoba More

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      Milei Called the Pope a ‘Filthy Leftist.’ He Could Be Argentina’s Next President.

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      Javier Milei is leading the race to be Argentina’s next president. But he is dogged by his past broadsides against a fellow countryman: Pope Francis.Javier Milei, a far-right libertarian leading the polls in Argentina’s presidential election this month, has made a lot of contentious statements in recent years: Humans did not cause climate change; people should be able to sell their organs; his nation’s currency “is not even good as manure.”But, to many Argentines, he has done something far worse: attacked the pope.In 2020, Mr. Milei, a self-identifying Catholic, called Pope Francis an “imbecile” and “the representative of the Evil One on earth” because he defends “social justice.” Last year, Mr. Milei said the pope “always stands on the side of evil” because he supports taxes.And last month, in an interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Mr. Milei said the pope “has an affinity for murderous communists” and is violating the Ten Commandments.Those are bold words for a man trying to become president in Argentina, where nearly two out of three people identify as Catholic, where the state is officially Catholic and where the Argentine pope is, to many, a national hero.But Mr. Milei — a Rolling Stones cover band singer turned libertarian economist turned television pundit turned politician — is not your average presidential candidate.He has run with little party structure around him. He has vowed to decimate the government he is vying to lead. He promises deep cuts to social services. He wants to discard his nation’s currency.And instead of campaigning with a spouse and children, Mr. Milei has an immediate family that consists of his sister (who runs his campaign), his girlfriend (who gets paid to impersonate a political archrival) and his five Mastiff dogs (which are clones of his previous dog).The approach may be unorthodox, but it is working.In August, Mr. Milei won open primaries with 30 percent of the vote, ahead of candidates from the center-left party running the country and the establishment conservative party.Since then, he has continued to lead polls and analysts say he is likely to attract enough votes in the election on Sunday to either head to a runoff or win the presidency outright.But his past comments are still shadowing him.“He talked trash about the pope,” said Maria Vera, 47, an empanada seller in a large slum called Villa 21-24 in southern Buenos Aires. “If Milei doesn’t have respect for our holiest priest, I don’t know whom he’s going to have respect for.” She is not voting for him, she said.On a road leading to the slum, walls were covered with posters of the pope’s face and a clear message: “Milei hates him. The people love him. Which side are you on?”Posters near the Villa 21-24 slum in Buenos Aires read, “Milei hates him. The people love him. Which side are you on?”Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesThe Vatican has stayed quiet on the issue and did not respond to a request for comment. But in Argentina, church leaders are pushing back.Last month, some of Argentina’s top Catholic priests organized a mass in Villa 21-24 to atone for Mr. Milei’s “shameful insults” toward the pope. They erected an altar outside the church, and 30 priests stood and read a statement supporting Pope Francis, as parishioners filled the road.The leader of the church, the Rev. Lorenzo de Vedia, known widely as Padre Toto, said much of his flock continued to bring up Mr. Milei’s comments. “Even people who are not so involved in the daily life of the church are really offended,” all the more so, he said, now that Mr. Milei “has a chance to be president.”Mr. Milei’s campaign declined to make him available for an interview.His opponents have tried to seize on the controversy.Sergio Massa, Argentina’s finance minister, who is polling just behind Mr. Milei, used his one chance to question Mr. Milei during a debate this month to needle him about the pope. “You insulted the head of the church,” he said. “Please use these 45 seconds to ask for forgiveness to the most important Argentine in history.”Mr. Milei sought to dismiss his past comments, saying he made them before he entered politics, though several have come since he was elected to Congress in 2021. He also said he had apologized to the pope, though The Times could not find a record of that and his campaign could not provide specifics.“I have no problem apologizing if I am wrong,” Mr. Milei said to his opponent at the debate. “Stop taunting me and focus on lowering inflation.”The Rev. Lorenzo de Vedia at his church in the Villa 21-24 slum. He said his parishioners had been offended by Mr. Mille’s comments about the pope.Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesSome people who were once close to Mr. Milei have criticized his comments about the pope.Eduardo Eurnekian, one of Argentina’s most prominent businessmen and Mr. Milei’s former boss when he was an economist, said in a radio interview that Mr. Milei’s comments were “totally out of line,” adding that “the pope is the pope, he has a huge responsibility, and we’ve been respecting his figure for over 2,000 years.”But plenty of other allies — and voters — are less troubled by his comments.In the tiny town of Chicoana in northern Argentina, Daniel Mamani, 64, has played the role of Jesus Christ in the town’s Easter celebration for more than a decade.While Mr. Milei’s comments about the pope made him uncomfortable, he said, he plans to vote for him because the country needs change. “He will have to pay for his debts, won’t he? That is, with the Lord above,” Mr. Mamani, an auto mechanic, said. “I’m interested in the part that is going to help Argentina’s well-being.”Daniel Mamaní, a mechanic, says he plans to vote for Mr. Milei despite the candidate’s views on the pope.Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesLilia Lemoine, Mr. Milei’s friend and hair stylist running for Congress on his ticket, said that she and Mr. Milei had long spoken about what she described as the pope’s leftist positions.“I think exactly the same as he does,” she said of Mr. Milei. The pope “supports communism and gender ideology, and I don’t think that’s what Catholicism is.” She added, “Javier apologized for what he said, but I wouldn’t.”Ms. Lemoine said that Mr. Milei had also been moving away from the Catholic church in other ways. “Now he is studying kabbalah,” a form of Jewish mysticism, she said. “He became really close friends with a couple of rabbis.”In fact, after Mr. Milei won a seat in Argentina’s Congress in 2021, several Argentine news outlets quoted him as saying that he was considering converting to Judaism and aspired “to become the first Jewish president in the history of Argentina.” Mr. Milei’s campaign denied that he had ever said that.In August, in an interview with the Argentine newspaper La Nación, Mr. Milei said that, in many ways, he felt Jewish. “I don’t go to church, I go to temple,” he said. “I don’t talk to priests, I have a head rabbi and I study Torah. I am internationally recognized as a friend of Israel and a Torah scholar.” Last month, Mr. Milei said he went to Miami to spend Shabbat with friends and then flew to New York to meet with a rabbi.Still, Mr. Milei has continued to describe himself as a Catholic and has staked out positions more in line with Vatican policy than his opponents, including aiming to ban abortion, which was legalized in Argentina in 2020.Pope Francis was born as Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires in 1936. From 1998 to his election as pope in 2013, he was Argentina’s highest Catholic official, known for his work with the poor.Pope Francis, then Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, on the subway in Buenos Aires in 2008. He is the first pope from the Americas.Pablo Leguizamon/Associated PressThe pope has clashed with politicians before. His staunch support for the Vatican’s positions on social issues, including abortion, same-sex marriage and adoptions by gay couples, also made him a sort of political rival to the former left-wing presidents of Argentina, Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.In 2010, when Mrs. Kirchner’s government supported legalizing same-sex marriage, Francis, who was not yet pope, described the law as “a maneuver by the devil.” Mrs. Kirchner fired back that the church’s stance was “medieval.”Mr. Milei’s criticism has been much harsher. He has called Pope Francis a “filthy leftist,” an “embarrassing communist,” a “piece of shit” and a “potato.” (The Spanish word for “pope” also means “potato.”)During his 10 years as the first pope from the Americas, Pope Francis has visited all of Argentina’s neighbors — but not Argentina. It has been widely speculated that he has avoided his home country to keep out of its polarizing politics.But Francis has said he plans to return home next year.Who might be welcoming him? President Milei.Natalie Alcoba More

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      En Argentina, Javier Milei asciende y el peso se hunde

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      Javier Milei se ha convertido en el favorito en las elecciones argentinas de este mes al prometer dolarizar la economía. En respuesta, el peso argentino se desploma.Javier Milei sigue siendo solamente un candidato a la presidencia de Argentina. Pero ya está provocando él solo un choque financiero en una de las mayores economías de América Latina.El valor de la moneda argentina está cayendo en picada por las críticas de Milei, un libertario de extrema derecha que se ha convertido en el principal candidato presidencial al prometer sustituir el peso argentino por el dólar estadounidense.El lunes, Milei prosiguió sus ataques contra el peso al desaconsejar a los argentinos que realicen inversiones en esta moneda. “El peso es la moneda que emite el político argentino y por ende no puede valer ni excremento”, dijo en un conocido programa de radio. “Esa basura no sirve ni para abono”.Solo el lunes, la tasa de cambio no oficial del peso, que refleja la valoración de la moneda por parte del mercado e impulsa los precios en Argentina, cayó el 7 por ciento, y luego otro 10 por ciento el martes por la tarde.A esa tasa de cambio no oficial, el martes por la tarde, con un dólar se compraban 1035 pesos, la primera vez que el peso rebasó la barrera de los 1000 pesos frente al dólar. Antes de que Milei ganara las elecciones primarias el 14 de agosto, con un dólar se compraban 660 pesos. En abril de 2020, al comienzo de la pandemia, la cifra era de 80 pesos.La escalada de la crisis llevó al Banco Central de la República Argentina, que Milei ha prometido cerrar, a emitir una declaración extraordinaria el lunes por la tarde: “Argentina mantiene un sistema financiero líquido y solvente” y añadió que respalda los depósitos bancarios argentinos.El martes, las principales asociaciones bancarias del país instaron a los candidatos a “mostrar responsabilidad en sus campañas y declaraciones públicas”.Milei, un economista excéntrico que quiere poner de cabeza el gobierno y el sistema financiero del país, es el favorito en las elecciones presidenciales argentinas del 22 de octubre, aunque las encuestas dan a entender que la contienda podría llegar a una segunda vuelta en noviembre.Su ascenso ha dominado la conversación a nivel nacional y ha acelerado la caída del peso.La mañana después de que Milei sorprendiera al país al quedar primero en las primarias presidenciales de agosto, las presiones del mercado obligaron al gobierno a devaluar el peso un 20 por ciento.Simpatizantes de Milei durante un mitin de campaña el mes pasado en San Martín, ArgentinaLuis Robayo/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLos comentarios de Milei están generando “una disparada en la inflación o un eventual problema bancario, que es lo que él está alentando”, dijo Marina Dal Poggetto, economista argentina y exanalista del Banco Central de su país. “Lo que estás viendo es un inicio de una corrida que puede frenar o no. Hay que ver lo que pasa el 22 de octubre. Todavía Milei no ganó”.Milei ha aceptado comparaciones con Donald Trump y Jair Bolsonaro, expresidente de extrema derecha de Brasil, y ha sido noticia por negar el papel del ser humano en el cambio climático, criticar duramente al papa y por sus promesas de prohibir el aborto y legalizar la venta de órganos humanos.Pero la pieza central de su campaña han sido sus lecciones, a veces con tono catedrático, sobre política económica, diseñadas para persuadir a los votantes de que él es el único que puede arreglar la galopante inflación de Argentina.El país se encuentra inmerso en una de sus peores crisis financieras en décadas, con una inflación anual que supera ya el 120 por ciento y precios que cambian a la semana, o incluso más rápido, en muchas tiendas y restaurantes.Con los precios tan altos, los argentinos deben viajar con fajos grandes de billetes, que cada día valen menos. El gobierno argentino emitió este año un billete de 2000 pesos, pero ya vale menos de 2 dólares.Para comprar artículos costosos, como propiedades o automóviles, los argentinos pagan con billetes de 100 dólares estadounidenses. Para conseguir esos billetes, a menudo tienen que comprarlos a cambistas ilegales que ofrecen dólares en el centro de Buenos Aires como si fueran narcotraficantes, porque el gobierno federal, escaso de dólares, ha impuesto límites estrictos a la cantidad de la divisa que la gente puede comprar a la semana.Sergio Massa, ministro de Economía argentino y principal oponente de Milei, lo acusó el lunes de intentar deliberadamente desestabilizar la moneda argentina para causar estragos antes de la votación. “Por un voto más, está timbeando el ahorro de la gente”, dijo Massa, un político de centro-izquierda del partido que ha dirigido el país durante 16 de los últimos 20 años.El martes, Patricia Bullrich, candidata presidencial de centroderecha, culpó tanto a Milei como al gobierno actual en una entrevista durante una visita de campaña. Afirmó que el gobierno estaba tratando de bajar los impuestos sin recortar el gasto, mientras que Milei estaba empeorando la situación.El martes, Milei respondió a las críticas de que sus comentarios estaban agravando la crisis económica con un video que publicó en línea con una recopilación de sus intervenciones en las que compara el peso con excremento a lo largo de años de apariciones televisivas. “Es vergonzonzo el espectáculo que están dando los políticos tratando de obtener rédito político del descalabro económico inventando responsabilidades”, dijo. “Si quieren encontrar a los responsables mírense en el espejo, sinvergüenzas”.En un acto con empresarios celebrado la semana pasada, Milei afirmó que cuanto menor fuera el valor del peso, más fácil sería dolarizar Argentina.Si es elegido presidente, es probable que Milei enfrente grandes dificultades para llevar a cabo sus propuestas. Milei ha dicho que probablemente necesitará una inyección de 40.000 millones de dólares para cambiar la moneda oficial de Argentina, aunque no está claro que pueda conseguir tanto dinero. Argentina ya tiene dificultades para pagar su deuda de 44.000 millones de dólares con el Fondo Monetario Internacional.Sergio Massa, ministro de Economía de Argentina y principal oponente de Milei, lo ha acusado de intentar desestabilizar deliberadamente la moneda argentinaAgustin Marcarian/ReutersMilei también ha dicho que el Congreso argentino tendría que aprobar muchas de sus propuestas, que incluyen profundos recortes del gasto público, la eliminación de muchos impuestos y la privatización de todas las empresas estatales del país.Es probable que su incipiente partido político, La Libertad Avanza, controle una pequeña parte de los escaños del Congreso, lo que lo obligaría a forjar alianzas con otros partidos a los que ha calificado de criminales.Argentina lleva décadas lidiando con una inflación alta, y tuvo un episodio de hiperinflación en la década de 1980, cuando los clientes se apresuraban a comprar artículos antes de que los dependientes que llevaban etiquetadoras de precios pudieran hacer otra ronda de aumentos. Pero la escalada de precios, impulsada por una moneda débil, ha vuelto en los dos últimos años.Algunos de los problemas de Argentina se deben a factores económicos mundiales, como la pandemia y la guerra en Ucrania, pero en gran parte, según los economistas, se deben a que el gobierno ha gastado más de la cuenta para pagar universidades, salud, energía y transporte público gratuitos o muy subvencionados. Para financiar todo eso, Argentina ha impreso a menudo más pesos.El resultado ha sido una creciente falta de confianza en la moneda, que ha obligado al gobierno a crear más de una decena de tasas de cambio distintas para el peso, porque su propia tasa de cambio oficial ya no refleja la valoración del mercado.Las nuevas tasas incluyen una para los turistas, otra para los exportadores de soja y otra para los argentinos que viajaban a Catar para ver a su selección nacional de fútbol ganar el Mundial de 2022. El llamado Dólar Blue es la tasa paralela más importante —fijada por un pequeño grupo de empresas financieras y que aparece en vivo en los noticieros de televisión— y es la forma en que la mayoría de los argentinos transfiere sus pesos a dólares en el mercado clandestino.El martes, buscando apaciguar algunos temores del mercado, el gobierno consolidó varias de esas tasas en una nueva que al menos un contador denominó Dólar Elecciones.Natalie Alcoba More

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      In Argentina, a Far-Right Candidate Rises and the Peso Plunges

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      Javier Milei has become the favorite in Argentina’s election this month by pledging to dollarize the economy. In response, the Argentine peso is crashing.Javier Milei is still just a candidate to be president of Argentina. But he is already single-handedly delivering one of Latin America’s biggest economies a financial shock.The value of Argentina’s currency is plummeting under criticism by Mr. Milei, a hard-right libertarian who has become the leading presidential candidate by promising to replace the Argentine peso with the U.S. dollar.On Monday, Mr. Milei continued his attacks on the peso by discouraging Argentines from holding any investments in the currency. “The peso is the currency issued by the Argentine politician and therefore is worth less than excrement,” he said on a popular radio show. “That trash is not even good as manure.”The peso’s unofficial rate, which reflects the market’s valuation of the currency and drives prices in Argentina, fell nearly 7 percent on Monday alone, reducing its value by about 15 percent over a week.At that unofficial rate, $1 bought 945 pesos as of Tuesday morning. Before Mr. Milei won a primary election on Aug. 14, $1 bought 660 pesos. In April 2020, at the start of the pandemic, the figure was 80 pesos.The escalating crisis prompted Argentina’s Central Bank, which Mr. Milei has promised to shutter, to issue an extraordinary statement on Monday afternoon that “Argentina maintains a liquid and solvent financial system” and that it backs Argentine bank deposits.Mr. Milei, an eccentric economist who wants to upend the country’s government and financial system, is the front-runner in Argentina’s presidential election on Oct. 22, though the race, polls suggest, could still go to a November runoff.His ascent has dominated the national conversation and accelerated the peso’s decline.The morning after Mr. Milei surprised the nation by finishing first in presidential primaries in August, market pressures forced the government to devalue the peso by 20 percent.Supporters of Mr. Milei during a campaign rally last month in San Martín, Argentina.Luis Robayo/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Milei’s comments are causing “a spike in inflation or an eventual banking problem, which is what he is encouraging,” said Marina Dal Poggetto, an Argentine economist and former analyst at Argentina’s Central Bank. “What you are seeing is the beginning of a run that may or may not stop. We have to see what happens on October 22. Milei still hasn’t won.”Mr. Milei has embraced comparisons to Donald J. Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former far-right president, and has made headlines for his denials of the role of humans in climate change, his harsh criticisms of the pope and his aims to ban abortion and legalize sales of human organs.But the centerpiece of his campaign has been his sometimes professorial lectures on economic policy designed to persuade voters that he alone can fix Argentina’s soaring inflation.The country is in the midst of one of its worst financial crises in decades, with annual inflation now topping 120 percent and prices at many stores and restaurants changing weekly, if not faster.Sergio Massa, Argentina’s finance minister and Mr. Milei’s principal opponent, accused Mr. Milei on Monday of deliberately trying to destabilize Argentina’s currency to wreak havoc ahead of the vote. “In order to gain one more vote, he is gouging people’s savings,” said Mr. Massa, a center-left politician from the party that has led the country for 16 of the past 20 years.At an event with business leaders last week, Mr. Milei said that the lower the value of the peso, the easier it would be to dollarize Argentina.If elected president, Mr. Milei is likely to face major challenges in accomplishing his proposals. Mr. Milei has said that he will likely need a $40 billion infusion of dollars to switch Argentina’s official currency, though it is unclear he would get that much money. Argentina is already struggling to pay its $44 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund.Sergio Massa, Argentina’s finance minister and Mr. Milei’s principal opponent, has accused Mr. Milei of deliberately trying to destabilize Argentina’s currency.Agustin Marcarian/ReutersMr. Milei has also said that Argentina’s Congress would have to approve many of his proposals, which include deep cuts to government spending, the elimination of many taxes and privatizing all of the nation’s state companies.His nascent Liberty Advances political party would likely control a small share of the seats in Congress, forcing him to forge alliances with other parties that he has labeled criminal.Argentina has struggled with high inflation for decades, including a bout of hyperinflation in the 1980s when customers were rushing to buy items before clerks wielding price guns could make another round of increases. But spiking prices, driven by the weak currency, have roared back over the past two years.Some of Argentina’s problems have been driven by global economic factors, like the pandemic and the Ukraine war, but much of it, economists say, is because the government has overspent to pay for free or deeply subsidized universities, health care, energy and public transportation. To finance all that, Argentina has often printed more pesos.The result has been an increasing lack of confidence in the currency, which has forced the government to create more than a dozen separate exchange rates for the peso, because its own official rate no longer reflects the market’s valuation.The new rates include one for tourists, one for soybean exporters and one for Argentines who were traveling to Qatar to watch their national football team win the 2022 World Cup. The so-called Blue Dollar is the most important parallel rate — set by a small group of financial companies and listed live on television news programs — and is how most Argentines transfer their pesos to dollars on the underground market.On Tuesday, seeking to assuage some market fears, the government consolidated several of those rates into a new rate that at least one accountant called the Election Dollar.Natalie Alcoba More

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      In Argentina, the U.S. Dollar Could Soon Become King

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      Americans complain that inflation has eroded the value of their money, but the U.S. dollar looks lovely to the people of Argentina, where consumer prices rose 124 percent in August from a year earlier. The threat of hyperinflation has become a central issue in the presidential election on Oct. 22, which The Times has described as “a new test of the strength of the far right around the world.” The leading candidate in the race, which could go to a November runoff, is a radical libertarian who promises to bring rising prices under control by getting rid of the peso and fully dollarizing the Argentine economy.Buena idea, o mala?I’ll get to the pros and cons of dollarization in a minute, but first a few words on why Argentines would even consider such a drastic step. Argentina is blessed with abundant natural resources. Early in the 20th century, it was richer than Germany or France. “Until the 1930s, the French used the phrase ‘riche comme un Argentin’ to describe the foolishly rich,” the economists Edward L. Glaeser, Rafael Di Tella and Lucas Llach wrote in the Latin American Economic Review in 2018.But Argentina’s economy has been stunted by disastrous economic policies and chronic political instability. There were periods of military rule, hyperinflation, defaults on external debt, protectionism and under-industrialization. Argentina has been a democracy since 1983 but successive governments, whether left- or right-leaning, haven’t managed to match neighbors such as Chile, Uruguay and Brazil in bringing down inflation and stabilizing finances.That record of failure is written on the currency. Since 1970, Argentina has burned through several currencies: the peso ley, the peso argentino, the austral and now the peso convertible. Today there is no single exchange rate with the dollar that all residents can use. As colorfully explained recently in The Buenos Aires Herald, there is the official, or “wholesale,” exchange rate, for international trade; the savers’ exchange rate, which is supposedly for savers but is not widely accessible; and the “blue” dollar, which is essentially the black-market rate. Foreign tourists can buy pesos at yet another rate, the M.E.P., short for Mercado Electrónico de Pagos. There are even temporary exchange rates, such as the Vaca Muerta rate, which is named after where it was announced last month (not because it’s for buying or selling dead cows).Javier Milei, who leads the polls in the presidential race, wants to chuck the whole rickety system, abolish the central bank and adopt the U.S. dollar, as three smaller Latin American countries — Ecuador, El Salvador and Panama — have already done.Milei, it’s important to say, has extreme and I would argue insupportable stands on a number of issues. He wants to drastically cut taxes and spending, as The Times wrote, “including by charging people to use the public health care system; closing or privatizing all state-owned enterprises; and eliminating the health, education and environment ministries.” He is an economist and a member of the legislature who has large dogs named Milton Friedman, Robert Lucas and Murray Rothbard.But let’s separate the message from the messenger and look at the dollarization proposal on its merits. The biggest plus is that it would most likely get rid of Argentina’s high inflation overnight. The money available for spending inside Argentina would be only the dollars that the country already has in reserves or manages to acquire by, say, running trade surpluses with the United States or borrowing. The general price level can’t rise if there is no increase in the supply of dollars, unless the velocity of circulation increases. As Milton Friedman (the economist, not the dog) once said, “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”Dollarizing the economy is like locking oneself in handcuffs and then throwing away the key. It’s an act of desperation when nothing else works.And like most acts of desperation, dollarization has big drawbacks. By switching to dollars, Argentina would effectively adopt the monetary policy of the United States, thus losing the ability to raise or lower interest rates to suit local conditions. It would lose the profit known as seigniorage that comes from printing money. And dollarization wouldn’t solve the structural problems that have caused high inflation, such as government overspending, as Guillermo Ortiz, a former governor of Mexico’s central bank, told reporters in September.This week I interviewed Iván Werning, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who grew up in Argentina and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees there before getting a doctorate at the University of Chicago. With two graduate students who are fellow Argentines, he has written two recent papers about dollarization, which he calls a “dangerous delusion,” and has wrestled with opponents on X, formerly Twitter.Werning isn’t persuaded that dollarization really would tie the government’s hands. In an email to me, he pointed out that Argentina tried once before to link to the dollar, through currency board “convertibility,” but abandoned the program in 2002. “Argentina could reissue the peso in short order, in a manner similar to how its provinces have issued government pesos in the past to pay for bills,” he wrote. Ecuador, he said, has found “creative accounting ways” to loosen the constraint of its dollarization, such as having the central bank finance the treasury.The Argentine government doesn’t have enough dollars to replace all of its pesos at current exchange rates, even at the unofficial “blue” rate, Werning told me by phone. There are rich people with lots of dollars squirreled away abroad, but that doesn’t help the ordinary Argentine, he said. So in his view, if the conversion were done today, there could be an extreme shortage of money in the economy, which would most likely cause a deep recession because prices and wages would not adjust smoothly to the dollar scarcity. Postponing the conversion could make matters worse, by triggering an anticipatory burst of inflation, he added.The problem could be solved if Argentina were able to raise more dollars, but in that case it probably wouldn’t need to dollarize in the first place, he said.Understandably frustrated by years of dysfunction, the Argentine people are looking for a quick fix for inflation, Werning told me. But the quick fix would have bad consequences in the long term, he said. He prefers more conventional solutions such as bringing government budgets closer into balance. On that score, he is slightly hopeful.“Today there’s a lot more consensus” about the need to reduce spending, Werning said. The message is coming not just from Milei, the extreme libertarian, but also from Patricia Bullrich, a center-right candidate who served in the cabinet of Mauricio Macri. Even Sergio Massa, a candidate who is the economy minister in the current, center-left government of Albert Fernandez, has talked about cutting spending, although “his actions do not match his words,” Werning said. Whether any of the candidates would be as resolute in office, when anti-austerity protests begin, is another question. But Werning said, “If ever there was a chance” for righting Argentina’s finances, “it might be now.”The Readers WriteDonald Trump and his lawyers persist in re-arguing points and generally annoying the judge because they hope to elicit an intemperate response that could be read as bias. I am a trial lawyer, and I have seen this happen. Because this is a bench trial, a mistrial would take a real circus breaking out. But they may be able to argue on appeal that Trump was denied a fair trial.James M. MillerSarasota, Fla.Your opinion on the “fix” for our budget problem is spot on, but lawmakers’ concern about job security exceeds their willingness to do the best job for the country. And so we languish with incidental actions that appear helpful but don’t make the real change we need.Kathy CrosbyGrand Rapids, Mich.Quote of the Day“America is ungovernable; those who have served the revolution have plowed the sea.”— Simón Bolívar, South American revolutionary leader, in 1830, as quoted by Sheldon Liss and Peggy Liss in “Man, State, and Society in Latin American History” (1972) More