Argentina's Leading Presidential Candidate Vows to Shut Down Central Bank if Elected
Argentina’s president hopeful Javier Milei, who won the preliminary elections last Sunday with 30% of the votes, pledged to close the nation’s central bank while saying he would follow El Salvador's model and enable competition between currencies.
- Milei's plan includes "slashing spending by at least 13% of gross domestic product before mid-2025 by dramatically downsizing public works, reducing the number of ministries, removing subsidies and capital restrictions that would allow businesses to transact in US dollars."
- "More drastically, he also plans to shutter the central bank — which he said has “no reason to exist” — and dollarize the $640 billion economy," per Bloomberg.
“Central banks are divided in four categories: the bad ones, like the Federal Reserve, the very bad ones, like the ones in Latin America, the horribly bad ones, and the Central Bank of Argentina,” he was quoted as saying.
- "If Milei wins the presidency, he plans to hand over the keys to the central bank to economist Emilio Ocampo, his informal adviser on the dollarization program, so that he can shut it down."
Earlier this week, Javier Milei won the primary presidential election in Argentina. He had 30.5% of the votes versus candidates from "Juntos por el Cambio" (Together for Change) and "Unidos por la Patria" (United for the Homeland), who received 28% and 27%, respectively.
- "Ocampo will also help in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, which has a $44 billion program with the South American nation. The candidate says he has no plans to ask the IMF for more money," Bloomberg reported.
"The central bank is a scam, a mechanism by which politicians cheat the good people with inflationary tax,” Milei has previously argued. Regarding Bitcoin, he said that it "represents the return of money to its original creator, the private sector," per CoinDesk."
- "Milei said he’s already developed a plan to dollarize the economy, a move he vows would be among his first in case he wins the Oct. 22 election."
"Argentina would follow El Salvador’s model, allowing people voluntarily choose between currencies. Once two-thirds of the monetary base is converted, the economy would become fully dollarized, he said."
- In one of its recent moves, Argentina's Central Bank banned the country's financial institutions from engaging in operations involving Bitcoin.
