Something began to definitively break down on Tuesday, when the governor of Chubut, Ignacio Torres, received the news that the Nation had withheld 9.8 billion pesos from the co-participation.
He was to find out shortly after that the figure would stretch to 13.5 billion.
He called, two, three, one hundred.
He called for help.
He threatened to call Javier Milei himself, but he held back: he had already done it once, a month before, and it had not been successful.
Suddenly two important officials from the Casa Rosada attended to him.
One told him that there was nothing to do, that the decision had been made and that it came down to the President.
The other answered something similar, but he half-opened the door to explore an exit.
—Nacho, I understand that it's not with you.
The Government is looking for ways to kill one province to discipline the rest.
Give me a few hours and we will try to convince the President.
Torres responded with insults.
—Nacho, relax. "I know what I'm telling you,
" the official insisted.
Among the calls that Torres made there was one to Mauricio Macri, another to Patricia Bullrich and several to his peers from Together for Change.
He didn't want to cut himself before launching a drastic measure.
“
Come to Buenos Aires
,” Macri told him.
They met on Thursday at the offices on Libertador Street, in Olivos.
Torres attended with Rogelio Frigerio.
Both were surprised by the host's tone, which they judged to be
too understanding
towards the administration of La Libertad Avanza: “We have to give Milei a hand.
Now the conditions are in place for the changes that did not occur when it was my turn.”
Torres explained to him that the situation in his province was desperate.
And that he had an action plan, a threat under his arm: to announce in public that no more gas and oil shipments would leave
Patagonia
if the funds were not released.
He told him that he had already spoken with the governors of the region, but also with others from the North, and that he felt supported.
That everyone perceived that Milei wanted
to tie them down with the whip and the checkbook
.
One of them compared him to Néstor Kirchner.
“But without talent and with a Congress that does not respond to him,” he said.
Of course, he was a Peronist leader.
“Give me a day. Let me see what I can do
,” Macri asked Torres.
Bullrich suggested the same thing: that he wait.
The next day, Friday morning, the Chubut governorate suspected that an agreement in principle was emerging.
But then there was a long silence.
The phones stopped ringing.
Torres spoke again with a man from Mileism to feel the climate.
It was the last chat before the event in Comodoro Rivadavia.
The national official announced that there was going to be no turning back, but that, for the good of all, the conflict should not escalate.
“
I can't, in the province they kill me
,” Torres told him.
The leader, almost as if he wanted to protect him, told him that he was going to forward him a WhatsApp text that supposedly came from the guru of La Libertad Avanza, Santiago Caputo.
He sent it to her at 6:23 p.m. on Friday.
It was an internal message in which the communications team designed the defense operation.
—Let's take the tanks out to the networks. “We are going to break everything
,” the text said.
The governor read it and responded quickly:
—The network tanks suck my egg. We are going to defend ourselves.
The governor was still at the event organized by the Chubut Private Oil and Gas Union in defense of the Hydrocarbon Industry and Labor in the San Jorge Gulf Basin.
There he issued the ultimatum, which surprised even his own team, which expected a less intransigent announcement: “We give the national government time until Wednesday.
"If they don't get rid of us on Wednesday, not one more barrel of oil will come out of Chubut for Argentina."
Bullrich contacted him again:
“I didn't think you were going to do it.”
The action proposed by Chubut is complex to carry out.
Sources from the oil sector point out not only that
it is not legal but that, to carry it out, a blockade would be needed
at the Comodoro Rivadavia terminal.
Or promote a strike with the collaboration of the union.
The underlying fight is over a debt that Chubut has with the Nation, which comes from the time of Mariano Arcioni.
For this loan, the co-participating funds are taken as collateral.
Chubut requested an extension, like other provinces.
Nation denied it.
The Government intends to collect all those liabilities - which cover ten provinces - and maintains that nothing was unduly withheld from Chubut.
Milei, through network public services of communication, provision of water, electricity or energy substances.”
Defiantly, Torres said privately
: “I hope they dare to put me in prison.”
The governors took sides in favor of Chubut.
Together for Change released a statement, with the signature of the ten leaders - including that of Jorge Macri - in which he expressed his "total support" and asked the President to "comply with the Constitution."
The Patagonian leaders and the Peronists of the rest of the country joined forces: they required the Nation to “not extort.”
Axel Kicillof contacted Torres via chat for the first time in his life.
“I can't believe what they did to you.
“I am going to go out and show solidarity with you,” he wrote to her.
The Buenos Aires native did it, immediately, through Elon Musk's network.
Kirchnerism licks its lips when misfortunes are someone else's.
For Cristina's strength, everything is gain: Milei entered into a crisis with a governor who, it was assumed, could be an ally and who was supported in the campaign by Bullrich and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.
Milei went out to fight on the networks.
She wrote and “liked” very aggressive posts.
Her bet is the same as always: leaving “the caste” on one side and, on the other, “the people.”
Like when he wrecked the Omnibus Law and spoke of a victory.
And she celebrated a comment on the networks that said that during yesterday's flight to Washington she was dying of laughter at the comments about the fight with Torres.
The head of state's advisors, who keep a daily record of his image, say that popularity has not dropped since December, despite a monumental adjustment to the economy and very high inflation.
What would happen if that were suddenly reversed?
“That's why we want to do everything quickly and get through March and April, which are going to be the hardest months,” said an official with a free passport to the presidential office this week.
It is possible that Milei will continue to appeal to cuts and impact resolutions to sustain the initiative.
Last Thursday she announced that she will move forward with a bill to close INADI.
In the pipeline, although in a reserved way, there is another high-impact move.
Milei could soon announce the closure of Télam.
It is something that she promised during the campaign and that her intervenor, Diego Chaher, was ordered to execute.
“We are looking for a legal mechanism to do it now,” they revealed to
Clarín
.
Télam has 767 employees.
In 2023, the agency had planned expenses of 18,023 million pesos and in 2024, as there was no official advertising, it lost a business area.
The adjustment is part of the central core of the Government.
Milei is committed to balancing the accounts no matter what.
Luis Caputo, the Minister of Economy, promises an iron fist.
That begins to generate noise with his Cabinet peers.
Sandra Pettovello, who has to deal with the picketers and the lack of food in soup kitchens (44 thousand throughout the country, but 10 thousand who must be assisted urgently and constantly) ranted against him this week in a reserved talk.
The minister tried to deny that she had cried.
It is not important.
The criticism she directed at Caputo
was heard by at least three people
.
Enough for them to spread.
She later alleged an operation against her, as did the minister, who threatened on television to show complimentary messages from his Cabinet colleague and yesterday tweeted a photo of both of them in which they are seen smiling.
It wouldn't be the first time that someone says something, transcends it and, finding themselves in trouble,
says that what happened didn't happen.
“For this to work,
all the ministers will have to cry, not just Sandra
.
"That would indicate that Caputo is doing what Javier asks of him," said Thursday, and perhaps it should not be taken ironically, a collaborator of the President.
The adjustment is so fierce that even the IMF pointed out, through its deputy managing director, Gita Gopinath, that it is “essential” that the State make “sustained efforts to support vulnerable segments.
Milei's dialogue with Gita did not do without praise.
The Government assures that the Fund is committed to “doing what it has to do” to collaborate.
There are between 10 billion and 15 billion dollars that the organization could disburse.
Caputo wants them to have a break.
Milei is not so convinced: he believes that if the Central Bank continues to accumulate reserves and the field liquidates strongly, there would be no need to take on more debt.
Milei's personality is a constant topic of debate.
There have been many leaders - politicians and businessmen - who, out of good will, have sent messages to moderate their appearances.
They have even looked for interlocutors to “try to help” without it being noticed.
Days ago, a deputy went to visit him at his office.
As he left, a leader who was aware of the appointment called him, anxious, to know how he had seen his face.
—Did he say something to you?
—She asked.
-Yeah. That's not going to stop.