Javier Milei moved forward with one of his most important campaign promises: to start freeing Argentina's economy. The new president announced on Wednesday a mega decree of more than 300 articles, which repeals many regulations and modifies laws, among many other things, to eliminate price controls, facilitate the generation of employment and untangle the real estate market.
Although sectors of Peronism began to criticize the measure, some for its content and for having implemented it by means of a Necessity and Urgency Decree (DNU), the initiative was supported by one of the most important businessmen in the country, Marcos Galperin.
The founder of Mercado Libre, a South American version of Amazon that became the most valuable and strongest brand in Argentina according to Brand Finance, expressed his support for the libertarian president on social networks.
"They lied to you for 80 years, yesterday they told you the whole truth in 10 minutes," he wrote on his X account, formerly known as Twitter, about Milei's first national chain in which he explained and argued the measures included in the decree. The post did not take long to go viral since it exceeded one million reposts and generated interactions of all kinds.
Te mintieron durante 80 años, ayer te dijeron toda la verdad en 10 minutos.https://t.co/gde4WAhLDo a través de @YouTube
— Marcos Galperin (@marcos_galperin) December 21, 2023
It turns out that this is not the first time that the businessman shows sympathy for Milei. For example, when he was consulted days ago about the new president, he answered: "A company I founded 24 years ago is called Mercado Libre, so I definitely like it when I hear a politician say that he is going to favor the free market and capitalism. I think it's a way to generate economic growth".
Galperin even went so far as to criticize the Venezuelan regime on November 24. "The socialists cut off your legs, give you some crutches and then you have to thank them," he pointed out, also in his X account.
Argentina was among the "most repressed" economies
Until Milei's arrival, Argentina was not characterized as a country friendly to economic freedom. Indeed, the Heritage Foundation's latest Index of Economic Freedom ranked the South American country 144th out of 176, categorizing it as "mostly repressed."
"Compounded by corruption and political interference, the lack of judicial independence has severely eroded the limits of government. Leftist spending measures and price controls distort markets, and government interference continues to hamper the financial sector. Loss of confidence in the government's determination to promote or even maintain open markets has discouraged entrepreneurship," the conservative think tank explained.
