After two days of intense activity, President Javier Milei led the closing of Expo EFI 2026, the economic event which took place this Tuesday and Wednesday at the Buenos Aires Convention Center, establishing itself as the most important economic, financial and investment convention in the region
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At the beginning of his presentation, the president opted for a synthetic approach and decided to summarize his presentation based on the concepts he had already developed at the Libertad Foundation dinner on Monday and in his subsequent speech on Tuesday at the Libertad Palace.
In this context, Milei stressed that her intention was to specify the meaning of both messages to avoid distortive interpretations. “On Monday, the objective was to make clear the achievements we had and that we had international recognition. But since no one is a prophet in their land, what matters to us is the historical legacy,” he said, reinforcing the idea that his administration is beginning to garner validation outside the country despite internal resistance
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In a more emphatic part of his speech, the president returned to the criticism received for his confrontation with journalism and firmly defended his position in the face of what he considers systematic attacks. “I'm not going to accept the psychopathy of the Kukas or the lying journalists, I have the right to defend myself,” he said, setting a tone of strong political and media
confrontation.
The president maintained that “barbarities” have been said about his figure and relativised the impact of his own statements compared to the accusations he receives. “If I tell you anything, I don't affect your life or your property or your freedom, you can tell me the same thing and I can answer them,” he said, claiming his right to
respond publicly.
The President defended his Government's fiscal adjustment and stated that it was “the biggest adjustment in human history”, around 15% of GDP. He also argued that one hundred billion dollars were returned to Argentines and that 14 million people were lifted out of poverty. Along these lines, he rejected criticism of its social impact and assured that “the adjustment is not recessive nor does it create poor people if it falls on who has to fall: the public sector
”.
In another section, the Milei focused on growth-oriented measures and highlighted the role of the Ministry of Deregulation, which it defined as “the ministry of increasing returns”. In that regard, he noted that 15,000 regulations have already been eliminated, at a rate of 17 per day. “Where do you see it? It looks really easy. Argentina jumped 40 places in the economic freedom index in the last year.”
Referring to the role of the Ministry of Human Capital, he said “you could call the Gary Becker ministry.” He questioned the traditional assistance scheme, stating that “before, assistance to the most vulnerable sectors was to give them fish, basically slavery”, and proposed a paradigm shift: “we don't want Argentines to be slaves, we want free Argentines.”
Under this logic, he argued that today the tools are available so that Argentines "can fish “are available.
He questioned intervention and subsidy schemes, which he linked to price distortions and loss of efficiency. “Don chatarrín charged triple for the tubes, while fighting with the convict who paid him,” he exemplified, and said: “Is that efficient?” Along these lines, he warned that “to sustain a high price you must punish those who are going to do well” and stressed that “someone has to finance it, it's an enormous loss of
efficiency”.
He argued that the process of opening up and deregulation will generate disparate results between sectors. “There are going to be sectors that are going to do well and others that are going to do worse,” he said, arguing that “the result will depend on the businessmen”, contrasting cases such as Fate and
Lumilagro.
In this framework, he explained that the Government's role is to “free up the field” and clarified that “we don't choose the winners”, but rather seeks to “get the State out of the way and return freedom to the people”, pointing out that this scheme is the one that leads to greater economic efficiency and, consequently, to prosperity
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