Javier Milei’s radical economic policies for Argentina met with protests

New libertarian president accused of drawing up a ‘battle plan against working people’

Thousands of protesters have poured on to the streets of Buenos Aires after Argentina’s new president announced a far-reaching emergency decree containing dozens of controversial economic measures – a move one prominent critic compared to the actions of an absolute monarchy.

Javier Milei, a radical libertarian economist who was inaugurated less than a fortnight ago, won power promising a dramatic shake-up of Argentina’s moribund economy amid rampant inflation and widespread poverty. On Wednesday night Milei appeared on television, flanked by 12 stony-faced ministers and top officials, to unveil a decree he claimed would haul the South American country out of “the economic hell we are now living through”.