Argentina's President Milei presents 2025 budget, vowing austerity and setting up a showdown

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Libertarian President Javier Milei of Argentina presented the 2025 budget to Congress late Sunday, outlining policy priorities that reflected his key pledge to kill the country's chronic fiscal deficit and signaled a new phase of confrontation with lawmakers.

In an unprecedented move, Milei personally pitched the budget to Congress instead of his economy minister, lambasting Argentina's history of macroeconomic mismanagement and promising to veto anything that compromised his tough slog of tight fiscal policy.

The president's budget proposal followed a week of political clashes in the legislature — where Milei controls less than 15% of the seats — over spending increases that the administration warns would derail its IMF-backed “zero deficit” budget. Opposition parties have sought to raise salaries and pensions with inflation to help hard-hit Argentines cope with harsh austerity.

“The cornerstone of this budget is the first truth of macroeconomics, a truth that for many years has been neglected in Argentina: that of zero deficit,” Milei told lawmakers, facing rows of empty seats as most of the hard-line opposition Peronist bloc, Unión por la Patria, skipped his address. “Managing means cleaning up the balance sheet, deactivating the debt bomb that we inherited.”

Milei's supporters interrupted his speech — packed with his usual libertarian talking points — with whoops and cheers.

It will fall to the opposition-dominated Congress, which controls the government’s purse strings, to approve the final budget. Milei’s political isolation makes matters fraught, setting up weeks of negotiations with rivals who insist on concessions.

But Milei vowed that nothing would stop him from pressing on with austerity.

“The budget is a declaration of principles,” said Argentine economist Agustín Almada. “Even if there is no compromise from the opposition, Milei will continue pursuing this fiscal contraction.”

If the stroke of a veto pen failed to prevent powerful lawmakers from spending, Milei promised to find other ways to cut down the state.

“We will only discuss the increase in spending when it comes along with an explanation of what we’ll cut to compensate for it,” Milei said.

Over Milei’s past nine months in office, dramatic cuts to public spending — which he says are necessary to restore market confidence in a country ravaged by one of the world's highest annual inflation rates — have racked up a fiscal surplus (0.4% of gross domestic product), something unseen in nearly two decades.

The austerity has also caused deep economic pain in Argentina, with nearly 60% of Argentines now living in poverty, up from 44% in December 2023, according to the Catholic University. Milei has balanced the budget by slashing financial transfers to provinces, removing energy and transport subsidies and holding wages and pensions steady despite inflation.

The fight over pensions reached a head last week, when Milei and his allies defeated a bill that would have boosted social security spending in Argentina, compromising the administration's fiscal discipline.

The bill had swept through both houses of Congress last month but opposition parties ultimately failed to obtain the two-thirds majority needed to override the president’s veto after government lobbying eroded support for the measure.

At the news of the bill's rejection Wednesday, outraged retirees — who have lost roughly half of their purchasing power due to inflation — poured into the streets of downtown Buenos Aires, where they faced off with riot police spraying tear gas and water cannons.

Milei warned that his fiscal shock therapy was not going to be easy. But his administration is betting that the worst has passed. Although Argentina's annual inflation hovers around 237%, Milei has retained popular support by working to keep a lid on monthly inflation, which has dropped to 4% since its peak of 26% last December when he took office.

In an optimistic statement about the budget Sunday, the Finance Ministry said it expected Milei's proposal to result in an annual inflation rate of just 18% by the end of 2025 and yield a 5% economic growth rate. Argentina's economy contracted by more than 3% in the first half of 2024.

But much of Milei's future depends on Congress. The government's pension law victory over congressional opponents proved short-lived, as lawmakers in the lower house also passed a bill increasing spending on public universities.

Milei has vowed to veto the bill.

Milei suffered another blow when lawmakers rejected his plan to raise spending on the intelligence services by more than $100 million. Despite all the belt-tightening, Milei has committed to increasing defense spending from 0.5% of GDP to 2.1%, raising the hackles of some lawmakers amid his cuts to health and education.

Although Milei has repeatedly compromised to get his legislation through Congress, he took a strident tone in Sunday's speech, describing lawmakers who disagree with him as “miserable rats who bet against the country."

Some analysts warned that Milei's exercise in political messaging spelled trouble.

“The image of a half-empty chamber of deputies during the president’s speech is an indication that it will not be easy for the government to pass this budget,” said Marcelo J. García, Director for the Americas at the New York-based geopolitical risk consultancy Horizon Engage. “Again, Milei seems to be prioritizing confrontation over compromise.”

Argentine President Javier Milei's parents, Norberto Milei and Alicia Lujan Lucich, attend his presentation of the 2025 budget in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A woman scolds the police during protests against President Javier Milei's veto of a pension raise in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Argentina's President Javier Milei greets his sister Karina Milei as he arrives to Congress to present the 2025 budget in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Argentina's President Javier Milei addresses Congress as he presents the 2025 budget in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Argentina's President Javier Milei greets his sister Karina Milei as he arrives at Congress to present the 2025 budget in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Argentina's President Javier Milei arrives at Congress to present the 2025 budget in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Police guard Congress during protests against President Javier Milei's veto of a pension raise in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Victoria Villarruel, Argentina's vice president, arrives to President Javier Milei's presentation of the 2025 budget in Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Police detain a protestor during a demonstration against President Javier Milei's veto of a pension raise in front of Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

Argentina's President Javier Milei addresses Congress as he presents the 2025 budget in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Argentina's Economy Minister Luis Caputo, second from left, greets Argentina's President Javier Milei upon as he arrives at Congress to present the 2025 budget in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

A demonstrator holds a banner that reads in Spanish "The 2025 budget, starving us to death" as Argentina's President Javier Milei presents next year's budget in Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Argentina's President Javier Milei sings the national anthem as he addresses Congress to present the 2025 budget in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

OSLO, Norway (AP) — A beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation that it was a Russian spy, was not shot to death as claimed by animal rights groups but died of a bacterial infection, Norwegian police said Friday.

A final autopsy by Norway's Veterinary Institute “concludes that the probable cause of death was bacterial infection -- possibly as a result of a wound in the mouth from a stuck stick,” Amund Preede Revheim, head of the North Sea and Environment section of the police in south-western Norway said.

“There have been no findings from the autopsy that indicate that the whale has been shot,” he stressed, adding that the autopsy had been “made difficult by the fact that many of the whale’s organs were very rotten.” As there was no indication of foul play, there was no reason to start a criminal investigation into its death, Preede Revheim said.

The tame beluga, which was first spotted in 2019 not far from Russian waters with a harness reading “Equipment St. Petersburg,” had been nicknamed "Hvaldimir,” combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It was found floating in a southern Norway bay on Aug. 31.

In September, animal advocate groups OneWhale and NOAH filed a police report saying that the animal’s wounds suggested it was intentionally killed.

They pointed at several wounds found on the animal’s skin, including what was interpreted as a bullet hole.

“Assessments made by the Veterinary Institute and the police’s forensic technicians are that these are not gunshot wounds. X-rays of the chest and head were carried out without any projectiles or other metal fragments being detected,” police said in a statement.

Earlier, police had described a stick about 35 centimeters (14 inches) long and 3 centimeters (1 inch) wide which was found wedged in the animal’s mouth, its stomach was empty and its organs had broken down, police said. No further details were given.

The 4.2-meter (14-foot) long and 1,225-kilogram (2,700-pound) whale was first spotted by fishermen not far from the Arctic town of Hammerfest.

Its harness, along with what appeared to be a mount for a small camera, led to media speculation that it was a “spy whale.” Experts say the Russian navy is known to have trained whales for military purposes. Media reports also have speculated that the whale might have been trained as a therapy animal.

There was no immediate reaction from OneWhale or NOAH.

FILE - In this photo taken in April 2019 a beluga whale found in Arctic Norway is fed. (Jorgen Ree Wiig, Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries via AP)