Caputo, a man from the Macri orbit in the most committed portfolio of the Milei Government

Although his name was an open secret for days, the confirmation this Wednesday of Luis Caputo as Minister of Economy in the Government of Javier Mileiwho will take over as president of Argentina On December 10, he ratified a certain moderation in his economic policy.

After winning the second electoral round, held on November 19, with the closure of the Central Bank and dollarization as flags, in addition to the display of a chainsaw as a symbol of his projection for public spending, the libertarian economist opted for a man of the orbit of the former president Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) for the most committed portfolio of his cabinet.

With 142.7% year-on-year inflation, 40.1% poverty in the population, scarcity of reserves, impoverished soils, more than a 200% exchange rate gap between the official exchange rate and the parallel ones and an outstanding debt of about US$ 46,000 million with the IMF, the socioeconomic situation of Argentina requires very committed decision-making in the first actions of the Government of La Libertad Avanza (far-right).

A recent report from the consulting firm led by CaputoAnker Latin America, highlighted its confidence that “there will be an orderly and non-disruptive roadmap for market dynamics” and discarded “a scenario of dollarization at any price”.

Recently, in a meeting held with representatives of the banks that operate in Argentina and almost acting as a minister -without being confirmed yet-, Caputo highlighted that “the demand for money is dead” and that, therefore, it could not be “take out the trap on day one”, referring to the restrictions on accessing dollars at the official exchange rate.

“We will tend towards exchange rate unification”, he indicated.

market man

Caputo (Buenos Aires, 1965) is an economist and already knows what it is to be part of a Government, since he was Secretary of Finance between 2015 and 2017, then he became Minister of that area for 17 months (2017-2018) and, later, he presided over the Bank Central of the Argentine Republic (BCRA).

At the head of the monetary authority, which he arrived to replace Federico Sturzenegger, he was only there for three months, between June and September 2018, and was replaced by Guido Sandleris.

All of these positions occurred under the mandate of Macri, at that time with the formation called Cambiemos.

In the 2023 elections, and after the candidate of the Together for Change coalition (center-right), Patricia Bullrich, was left out of the runoff, both the former president and his former Minister of Security supported Milei for the second round against the ruling party Sergio. Massa.

Caputowho accompanied Milei during his recent trip to the United States, where he held meetings with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and with authorities of Joe Biden’s Government, was confirmed this Wednesday by the president-elect, who spoke of him as someone “valuable” for his next Executive.

“We consider them valuable, they are professionals who worked in Together for Change. I have to put together the best team to avoid an economic catastrophe that is the inflation that the Government (of Alberto Fernández) is leaving us with. Mauricio Macri doesn’t define things, but he is someone I talk to regularly“he said on Radio Rivadavia.

Days ago, he had highlighted in a meeting with executives that Argentina needed “an expert financial doll” and that there was no “greatest financial expert” in the country that Caputo.

With these comments, Milei was referring to the fact that the next Minister of Economy is a financial expert, a market man with very good relationships on Wall Street.

Caputo has been a professor of Economics and Finance at the Catholic University (UCA), spent four years (1994-1998) as head of Trading for Latin America at JPMorgan and then (1998 and 2003) for Eastern Europe and Latin America at Deutsche Bank. , an entity that he presided over until 2008 in Argentina, to later lead the mutual investment fund manager Axis; In addition, he was director of Edenor.

In his work during the Macri Government, he had a prominent role in the negotiation with the so-called ‘vulture funds’, speculative funds that, after the suspension of payments decreed in Argentina in 2001, sued the State in the United States, which concluded with a payment of 9,352 million dollars to the main creditors.

After that administration, the then president divided the Ministry of Treasury and Public Finance in two and elevated its Secretariat to ministerial rank, where he was a key actor in the decision to go into debt with the IMF (today for US$ 45,000 million), an organization with the who had disagreements during his time at the BCRA.

Now he faces a major challenge under the magnifying glass of being a ‘Macri man’ in the government of the libertarian Milei.