The week began under the banner of tension for Minister Luis Caputo It ends with the head of the Treasury Building consolidating his power.
After clashes with allied lawmakers over the handling of the omnibus law, President Javier Milei’s decision to fire his Infrastructure Minister, Guillermo Ferraro, it ended up working in Caputo’s favor.
The minister had already started with a robust portfolio. His predecessor, Sergio Massa, former candidate for the presidency of the Union por la Patria, had arrived at the Treasury Palace in August 2022 with the nickname “superminister”as it has taken the Ministry of Production and the Ministry of Industry into its orbit.
When Caputo took office last December he inherited this structure. Now, with the dissolution of Infrastructure, he would retain those powers.
In December Milei created the Ministry of Infrastructure which absorbed the secretariats that were included in the dissolved departments Public Works, Transport and Territorial Development and Habitat.
By now most of the secretariats were under Ferraro’s command They will remain under Caputo’s control, although the announcement has not yet been made official.
Among the new issues that Caputo must take charge of, that of Transport is the most urgent. The Government’s intention is that from February the new increases will begin to come into force which would bring the minimum ticket into the AMBA of Current $77 per $270in what will be the second increase in less than 20 days.
Caputo thus strengthens his power in a week in which the minister was questioned the harshness with which he intends to pursue the treatment of the Omnibus Act in Congress.
Last Wednesday, the day after the approval of the commission’s opinion on the project with several changes compared to the original proposal of the party in power, Caputo tried to set the tone for lawmakers.
Precisely this is one of the central points that will hinder the discussion at the headquarters – which should begin next Tuesday, even if the negotiation is not yet closed – is the increase in withholding taxes on exports, contested by most governors. The other burning point is what the formula will be for increasing pensions.
“Today I had a meeting with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Undersecretary of the Provinces to outline all provincial entries that will be cut immediately if any of the economic items are rejected. “It is not a threat, it is confirmation that we will fulfill the mandate that the majority of Argentines have given us to balance the fiscal accounts to end decades of inflation and economic plague,” Caputo tweeted.
This has generated strong crossover with Miguel Pichetto, who is leading negotiations between legislators who do not belong to the governing party but are willing to support some of the initiatives included in the bill.
“The Minister of Economy @LuisCaputoAR who did not have the courage to come to Congress, must stop putting pressure on governors and try to seek agreements with the provinces instead of threatening them”, counterattacked Pichetto.
In the last few hours the leader of the Federal Coalition Hacemos has raised the stakes by declaring: “If the government does not follow a coalition path, it will encounter difficulties.”
With this confrontation with allied legislators, the government is moving on difficult terrain, as it runs the risk of not gathering the votes needed to defend the project.
In this climate, Milei comes out giving Caputo a boost by adding more power and areas of influence. And it does so in the midst of a negotiation in which the ruling party has a lot to lose, even if it does not seem willing to make too many concessions.
Source: Clarin
