Javier Milei used the first anniversary of his inauguration on December 10 to promise that Argentina would remove currency controls in 2025 and permit wider use of dollars in everyday transactions. The televised address presented the next step of a project that had already produced a hard fiscal adjustment, a sharp slowdown in monthly inflation and repeated confrontations with Congress. It offered a roadmap, not a timetable or a legal instrument putting the new currency rules immediately into force.
A speech about the next stage
Milei said the foreign-exchange restrictions known as the cepo would end the following year, the Buenos Aires Herald reported. He also proposed a currency-competition scheme allowing people to transact in pesos, dollars or other currencies, except that taxes would remain payable in pesos. The Herald noted that the government had not yet issued a decree specifying how or when the arrangement would operate. Another promise was to remove 90% of the number of national taxes, not necessarily 90% of tax revenue. That distinction is important: eliminating numerous small levies need not provide the large overall tax cut that the headline might suggest.
Currency liberalisation carried formidable conditions. The central bank still had a difficult foreign-currency position, and Milei mentioned the possibility of a new IMF agreement or private financing to address it, the Herald reported. Removing controls without adequate reserves or a credible monetary anchor could put pressure on the peso. Keeping them indefinitely would undercut his pledge to normalise the market. The speech set a direction while leaving the precise sequence to Economy Minister Luis Caputo and the central bank.
An unsettled first-year balance sheet
The Ley Bases, passed in June after extensive cuts to Milei's original proposal, was his signature legislative success. It gave the administration limited delegated powers and a regime intended to attract large investments. His first presidential vetoes, protecting the fiscal target against pension and university funding bills, held in Congress. The same outcomes showed the narrowness of his position: without a working majority, the administration depended on sympathetic opposition deputies and governors to advance or defend policy.
The social balance was harder to compress into a victory speech. INDEC's first-half poverty measure reached 52.9%, and the rise followed an inflationary devaluation and recession. Monthly inflation had fallen to 2.7% in October, the Herald's anniversary review reported, but lower price growth did not refund families for lost purchasing power. Pensioners, university staff and students had all protested budget decisions. The administration's claim that disinflation would ultimately help poorer households had to be tested against subsequent income and poverty data, not treated as a completed social recovery.
Milei also projected a distinct diplomatic style. The Herald counted 16 foreign trips since he took office, with the United States his most frequent destination, as well as visits to Europe, Israel and Latin America. Its review described tensions with the governments of Brazil and Spain and changes to Argentina's positions in international forums. Supporters saw international visibility and ideological consistency; critics questioned whether disputes with partners would make practical trade and diplomatic cooperation more difficult.
As the anniversary closed, Milei could claim a reform law, lower monthly inflation and investors' renewed interest in Argentine debt. He could not yet claim that the economy had made all households better off, that capital controls had ended or that new investment had fully materialised. His 2025 promises invited an unusually clear test: whether the government could lift restrictions and simplify taxes while retaining the fiscal anchor that had defined its first year.
