ESPERT UNDER FIRE
Unión por la Patria lower house caucus chief Germán Martínez has demanded the immediate removal of libertarian deputy José Luis Espert from the chairmanship of the Congress Budget Committee following revelations linking him to Federico Andrés ‘Fred’ Machado, a businessman under arrest and awaiting extradition to the United States on charges of drug-trafficking, money-laundering and electronic fraud. The demand comes with the 2026 Budget submitted a fortnight ago up for debate. The main accusation against Espert thus far is a 2020 money order for US$200,000 from Machado. The libertarian argues that he is the target of a political operation. The economist admits to having got to know Machado in 2019 and to having accepted his assistance for a Viedma book launch, including air transfer, but denies being aware of his criminal activities, saying: “You can imagine that if I had known what kind of person he was, I would not have been thanking him left, right and centre.” In a Tuesday interview President Javier Milei dismissed Espert’s alleged narco links as “barbershop gossip,” also pointing to the suspicious timing of bringing up a case dating back several years on the brink of midterms.
MILEI MEETS MACRI
Ex-president Mauricio Macri and current President Javier Milei both confirmed last Tuesday that they held a “long meeting” at Olivos presidential residence last Sunday, also attended by Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos with a frank dialogue about which no further details were offered apart from Macri warning Milei about the risks of betting on a single partner like the United States – their first meeting in over a year. Milei limited himself to saying that he had thanked Macri for his “ generous statements” in recent weeks. The President also anticipated Cabinet changes after the midterms at the end of the month since he expressed confidence that these would see Ministers Patricia Bullrich (Security) and Luis Petri (Defence) both elected to Congress.
ECONOMIC ISSUES
Economy Minister Luis Caputo travelled to the United States yesterday to advance negotiations of the US$20-billion currency swap offered by the US Treasury last month. On Thursday Caputo’s US counterpart Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the Donald Trump administration’s aid would be limited to that currency swap, backtracking on previous “whatever it takes” talk of purchasing Argentine bonds by saying: “We won’t be putting any money into Argentina.” Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos said last weekend that the government would not be waiting for the currency swap of US$20 billion pledged by the United States Treasury, underlining that Argentina has “sufficient funds to meet the demand for dollars and pay its debts.” All the US government had said, he claimed, was: “We’ll be there when needed,” adding: “I do not recall ever having seen such clear and overwhelming support from the United States”.- a support which permits the country “to look towards the future with the issues we really need to face and and not with an unfounded financial volatility.” Francos further deemed Congress approval of the US credit package to be unnecessary. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund repeated via its spokesperson Julie Kozack previous advice to accumulate foreign currency reserves and build up a broad political base for structural reforms.
TRIPLE MURDER BREAKTHROUGH
Following an intense manhunt, Tony Janzen Valverde Victoriano, 20, aka ‘Pequeño J,’ the Peruvian drug ring leader accused of ordering the sadistic murders of three La Matanza girls whose mutilated bodies turned up in Florencio Varela last month, was arrested in the Peruvian capital of Lima on Tuesday together with his henchman Matías Ozorio, 28, for whom an Interpol Red Notice had been issued on suspicions of having participated more directly in the horrendous crime. Four other suspected participants were arrested within hours of the bodies being found on September 24, followed by the driver of the van abducting the girls (in Bolivia) and somebody who helped to bury the bodies. Last weekend thousands joined a march from Plaza de Mayo to Congress organised by the Ni Una Menos feminist organisation to repudiate the triple femicide of Morena Verdi, Brenda Del Castillo and Lara Gutiérrez, accompanied by parallel marches in Córdoba, Bariloche, Rosario, San Juan and Tucumán. The march was largely free of incidents apart from an attack on the LN+ journalist Robertito Funes Ugarte by masked demonstrators.
RECORD GRAIN SALES
The CIARA (Cámara de la Industria Aceitera de la República Argentina) chamber and CEC (Centro de Exportadores de Cereales) representing around 48 percent of Argentina’s exports reported last Wednesday that their sector had cashed in a record US$7.1 billion last month – 187 percent up on the same month last year and 291 percent more than the previous month. The surge was due to Decree 682/2025 temporarily suspending grain export duties until exports to the tune of US$7 billion had been cashed, provided that at least 90 percent of the transaction was completed in three days.
NUKES TO GO PRIVATE?
President Javier Milei’s government has formally launched the partial privatisation of NASA (Nucleoeléctrica Argentina Sociedad Anónima) state nuclear energy company via Decree 695/2025 but opposition caucuses in Congress have vowed to resist it. NASA is currently 79 percent state-owned with 20 percent belonging to CNEA (Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica) and one percent to the ENARSA regulatory agency. The new breakdown will be the sale of 44 percent of shares via national and international tender with five percent going to the workers and 51 percent remaining in the hands of the state and CNEA. The government argues that state intervention does not guarantee economic efficiency and that the incorporation of private capital is necessary to permit such projects as the extension of Atucha I nuclear power plant’s useful life and to avoid state subsidies amounting to 700 million pesos in 2023. Last year NASA posted a historic record of 10.4 million MWh generated.
MILEI ON THE STUMP
President Javier Milei made Tierra del Fuego the first stop in his inland swing of eight provinces campaigning for the midterms at the end of this month but was obliged to cut it short Monday in the face of tense Kirchnerite demonstrations repudiating his presence, limiting himself to a brief harangue of libertarian militants and a tour of the electronics assembly plants of Newsan (owned by Nicolás Caputo, the cousin of his Economy Minister Luis Caputo, and employing over 10,000 people in its eight industrial plants and three distribution centres). Amid tight security he was accompanied by Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei and La Libertad Avanza senatorial candidate Agustín Coto among others (Tierra del Fuego is one of eight provinces which also include senatorial races in this year’s midterms). Earlier this year Milei was declared “persona non grata” by the municipal council of the provincial capital of Ushuaia.
FENTANYL TRIAL UNDERWAY
Federal judge Ernesto Kreplak has placed 14 people, including Ariel García Furfaro, the owner of the HLB Pharma and Ramallo SA labs, on trial for the lethal distribution of contaminated fentanyl nationwide, placing a number of 124 on the fatalities so far in his writ of over 400 pages. The liens for all 14 defendants ran into billions of pesos.
DIPLOMATIC FAUX PAS
President Javier Milei addressed the United Nations General Assembly last September 24 with a speech including a reiteration of Malvinas sovereignty claims but only this week did an error clashing with those claims come to light – on that occasion Milei greeted President Vjosa Osmani of Kosovo, whose independence in 2008 was based on criteria of self-determination rather than territorial sovereignty very similar to the arguments of the Malvinas islanders so that the Balkan country’s independence is not recognised by Argentina in order to avoid a negative precedent. Kosovo is recognised by Britain while United States President Donald Trump also greeted Osmani. Milei is suspected of not being opposed to self-determination because on Veteran’s Day last April 2 he said that he would work towards the islanders “deciding to vote with their feet, preferring to be Argentine without need to convince them.”
WHO WANTS BURGER KING?
Burger King, owned by the Mexican group Alsea and with over 110 outlets in this country, has been put up for sale although Alsea will be hanging on to their other franchise, Starbucks. Burger King first entered Argentina in 1989 and is second only to McDonald’s in hamburger sales. The Kentucky pizza chain and the Inverlat group already operating Kentucky Fried Chicken and Wendy’s here figure prominently among potential buyers.
TELEFE LANDS WORLD CUP
The gala ceremony awarding the Martín Fierro prizes last Monday also included official confirmation that the Telefe channel has acquired the rights to transmit next year’s World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada with no less than 104 matches scheduled – Telefe’s first transmission of this tournament since the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The announcement came as no great surprise since the channel had already televised last year’s Copa América won by Argentina. Televisión Pública is also expected to acquire the rights despite an initial denial of interest. Prior to South Africa Telefe had already transmitted the 1998 World Cup in France.
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