“Argentina is fighting for its life,” North American President Donald Trump told the journalist who asked him about the repercussions for American ranchers of his decision, “it’s not that it benefits Argentina, it’s that they are fighting for their lives. They have no money. They have nothing. They are fighting with all their might to survive.”
Trump did not mince words. As if that were not enough to make clear what the true meaning of Yankee “aid” is, his statements confirm the scavenger nature of imperialism and large multinationals. When they see a wounded country that has been suffering for a long time, they set out to take what little is left. It is the same mechanism as always: offering dollars in exchange for more adjustment, more looting and greater dependence. There is no “aid” that does not have at its core the requirement to pay the debt, open the market to their companies and guarantee business for their vulture funds and multinationals.
In this context, Milei appears as the president willing to give everything, at any cost. Its policy is functional to the mandates of Washington and Wall Street: adjustment, labor reform, privatizations and guarantee of debt repayment. There is no independence or national defense, only submission and plunder. The open support of Trump and the IMF combo are confirmation that with Milei, Argentina is heading straight towards social, economic and environmental catastrophe.
The extractivist matrix is still alive and well. You can see it in the looting of lithium: while multinationals like Tesla, Livent and Toyota take the mineral with ridiculous royalties and fantasy tax conditions, indigenous peoples are repressed and communities lose water and territory. All backed by a State that only responds to outside interests, with laws tailored to big capital.
The accomplices and the lukewarm
But be careful, Milei is not alone in this. Such a surrender would not be possible without the complicity of those who today engage in electoral demagoguery, but then guarantee each pact of submission. It must be said with first and last name. These two years, Milei was able to govern with the support in Congress of the Macristas, radicals and the governors of the United Provinces. The latter are the first to validate national delivery. But they are not the only ones either. 10% of the Peronist deputies sold out and voted for Milei for key laws. Without expelling any of the “Peronists with a wig”, some still participate in the lists, for example, Governor Osvaldo Jaldo and the “pro-life” Juan Manzur in Tucumán whom Milei himself described as “heroes” for their support for the adjustment measures demanded by the IMF and the business chambers.
Sergio Massa, one of the shipowners of Fuerza Patria, considered an employee of the North American embassy, was one of the architects of the extractivist consensus that today allows the looting of strategic resources. 30-year fiscal stability for multinationals, unlimited concessions and laws tailored to foreign capital. Meanwhile, lithium mining generates just 0.06% of private employment, but destroys communities and wetlands. All so that the dollars go to pay the debt and fill the pockets of the vulture funds.
Axel Kicillof is another case, a few months ago he was outraged and called the agreement with the IMF a “pyramid scam”, but later in the campaign, he came out to show “State responsibility” and says that not paying the debt would be childish. Between 2019 and 2025, US$12,441 million went to the Fund in interest alone. Money that could have been used to guarantee food, health and education to millions of boys and girls who today suffer from hunger and poverty. But Peronism prefers to pay the Fund rather than guarantee basic rights. They talk about “roof, land and work” while perpetuating subjugation.
Itaí Hagman, leader of Patria Grande and Fuerza Patria candidate, is also not spared from the file. He was key in 2022 for Congress to approve the agreement with the IMF, giving up his place on the Budget Commission and then abstaining from the vote. This is how Macri’s fraudulent debt was legalized, at the request of Alberto Fernández. Now he disguises himself as an opponent, but the reality is that he accompanied all the adjustment budgets signed in the fine print of the IMF. Nothing emancipatory can be built with those who enable looting and then pose as fighters.
The icing on the cake is provided by the Mayans, Insfrán and company, who not only cross their arms while Milei adjusts, but even share acts with the progenocidal Victoria Villarruel. All Peronist interventions have one objective: for Milei to reach 2027, even if that means more adjustment, more poverty and more dedication. Meanwhile, the CGT and the CTA continue to take care of governability and refuse to call for a general strike. This way it does not confront imperialism or adjustment.
Confront imperialism at the polls and in the streets
Faced with this panorama, the only force that truly stands up is the left. It is not with those who agree with the Fund, nor with those who endorse extractivism nor with those who remain silent in the face of looting. We must confront Milei and Trump at the polls and in the streets, as the Left Front has been doing. History is not changed lukewarmly: it is changed by putting the body on the street and at the polls, with a program typical of the working class. We must declare the non-payment of the foreign debt and the nullity of all submission pacts and build the social and political force capable of imposing a national defense program that puts the country’s resources at the service of the vast majority, ends child poverty and guarantees true popular sovereignty.
They are legislative elections: the trap of the “lesser evil” with which Peronism bets time and again on preventing an independent exit of businessmen and the IMF is clearer than ever. As stated by Myriam Bregman, candidate for national deputy, for the FITU: “We are at a turning point, which is a government that is already finished. Now we must begin to debate how to get out of this so that the consequences of everything that Milei destroyed and will destroy as long as she can, are not paid again by the working people, are not left as a burden… We already saw this in the government of Alberto Fernández, where it ended up being ratified. Macri’s debt. Well, they say the Fernández government failed. Well, it failed for a very specific reason, because with the IMF there is no way out, that’s how it is… I believe that Milei’s plan must be defeated, the IMF’s plan must be defeated, but that this has to be in terms of popular organization, popular mobilization and with a way out where clearly the political program and this is where Congress comes in to play very seriously, the program with which “Take the measures that will necessarily have to be taken, be it a program designed for popular needs.”
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
