Javier Milei is looking to deepen his unconditional alignment with Donald Trump. The president of Argentina follows the geopolitical viewpoints of the U.S. leader, has made Trump’s friends and enemies his own, and even signed a free trade agreement with him, having visited the United States 17 times since his election. And now, Milei seeks to adopt the same mechanism for ordering a halt to public spending when budget appropriations run out or expire — a process known in the United States as a government shutdown.
“We are working on bringing about a shutdown of the executive branch — or more accurately put, of the political system,” Milei announced on Tuesday. “When the budget runs out, you can’t spend any more, and the government shuts down,” the far-right president explained, adding he would submit such a measure to Congress as a bill.
That initiative will be part of a package of reforms that Milei looks to move forward in a kind of relaunch of his administration. With it, the president wants to get back control, and get past the nearly four-month crisis in which his administration has been mired, which revolves around the corruption investigation of Manuel Adorni, his former cabinet chief who is among his closest allies. Adorni wound up resigning from his position 10 days ago, amid a judicial siege and immense public disapproval.
On Monday, Milei’s administration presented its financial plan for this and next year in the intention of calming markets prior to the country’s payment deadlines of over $45 billion. Then on Tuesday, the president announced he would be promoting the shutdown mechanism, along with other measures, to limit public spending, while he continues to take a chainsaw to the government in pursuit of financial surplus, the guiding principle of his economic plan.
He announced details of that plan on the streaming network Neura, after celebrating the Argentinian soccer team’s World Cup tournament win. The initiative, he shared, is linked to an ongoing project to reform the country’s Central Bank statute, to guarantee its “independence” from political powers, and prohibit it from issuing new currency to finance the treasury.
The project, Milei said, is “interrelated” with others that are currently being developed, such as amendments to the capital markets law, a new “fiscal amnesty” program (the government’s term for the legalization of undeclared money or assets), the deregulation of the insurance market, and changes to tax structures. “It is a set of reforms designed to make amends for 91 years of political fraud against law-abiding Argentinians,” Milei stated. On Tuesday afternoon, he led a meeting on details of the bill at the president’s official residence in Olivos, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, where he met with Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo; Minister of Deregulation, Federico Sturzenegger and the head of the Central Bank, Santiago Bausili.
“It is going to prohibit, explicitly and subject to criminal penalties, the violation of the Central Bank’s independence by requiring it to finance the government,” said Milei. He compared the issuance of currency to sustain public spending with a criminal act, and argued it should be subject to penalties, saying, “fraud and counterfeiting are criminal offenses.”
The far-right leader seeks to reverse changes introduced in 2012 to the Central Bank’s charter. At that time, under Cristina Kirchner’s presidential administration, the “primary and fundamental” function of the bank to “preserve the value of currency” was changed for a more ample mission: “to promote monetary stability, financial stability, employment and economic development with social equity.” According to Milei, that multiple aim constitutes “an insult to the intellect.”
In the United States, government shutdown takes place when Congress fails to pass public spending bills or temporary funding authorizations in a timely and proper manner. At such a point, state governments must suspend non-essential activities in light of a lack of funds to sustain them. The last time this took place was between October and November of last year, when the Trump administration remained under partial closure for 43 days, the longest shutdown in the country’s history.
Argentina’s current system does not provide for the suspension of government activities if there is no budget law in effect. In fact, Milei governed during the first two years of his term, 2024 and 2025, with no Congress-approved budget. In the South American country, the absence of a budget law entails an extension of the previous year’s distribution of funds, with adjustments stipulated by the executive branch. When Milei releases the text of his legislative proposal, the reach of his reform will become more clear, including whether the government will become inactive without an approved budget, as it does in the United States.
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