In the hallways, business leaders once again discussed the future of the dollar and the "square meter" economy.
MAR DEL PLATA.- The United States' unprecedented protection of Javier Milei's Argentina, with its increasingly exuberant figures, doesn't matter. The three bankers, separately, shared their opinions about what's coming. After October 26th, regardless of the election results, the dollar will have a different price.
Donald Trump's checkbook, according to those who follow the financial world minute by minute, will only offer an orderly "service" to the foreign exchange system. Industry insiders also see a tweakment, although they hope it will be discreet.
In the halls of the Sheraton Hotel, where the first day of the 61st IDEA Colloquium was held in this city, everyone agrees on two things: they give little thought to the agreements announced with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in April and they are unaware of the path that will be taken in relation to the dollar despite the official ratification: uncertainty reigns.
“I don’t know,” Siemens CEO Eduardo Gorsch responded when LA NACION asked him what exchange rate scenario he envisioned after the elections, despite the bombastic figure of up to US$40 billion in aid that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent let slip after the boomerang generated by Trump’s remarks following Javier Milei’s visit to the White House.
“Today there is a lot of uncertainty and expectations of devaluation,” said a banker off the record . “They're going to have to let it float; they have no other alternative,” added the finance minister, noting that US support serves to move the bonds out in an orderly manner. “After the elections, Argentina is going through a change in its economic regime in which the purchase of reserves will be at the center,” said another bank executive who was passing through the corridors. “The objective will not be to maintain a fixed exchange rate, but rather to add more dollars to pay the debt,” he added. Both agreed that there could be an impact on inflation, although consumption could limit, as has been the case this year, the pass-through to prices. “For the US and the IMF, the focus will be on debt sustainability,” he added. The government faces US$30 billion in maturities and is accessing the market.
“Today, everything is volatile and uncertain due to the election,” said Gustavo Salinas, president of Toyota Argentina. “We have to wait and see what happens (with the dollar), but there shouldn't be a major impact,” the more cautious manufacturer stated. Car prices depend largely on the exchange rate. The same was said by a food company, whose main inputs are imported commodities . “If there's a big jump, it will be difficult to translate it into prices,” he added.
Both imports—the government's open quotas for electric car imports, for example, and the hangars, whose capacity grows monthly to import products from the Chinese company Shein—and the stagnant mass consumption are serving the government to curb price increases due to the volatility of the dollar. "Companies are still stuck; many industries are once again generating imported stocks to cover themselves," said a businessman at a Mar del Plata luncheon. Something similar is happening with services: sales of tickets abroad for February slowed due to fears about what the dollar will be like starting next summer.
“We see that, in 2025, activity will recover to low levels, which was the decline last year,” Federico Amos, president of Acindar, told LA NACION . “The macroeconomy is getting back on track, but now it's experiencing volatility again due to the elections,” he asserted, predicting “mild” growth for 2026. “The microeconomy needs to have better conditions,” he pleaded. Like the business leaders at IDEA, he demanded tax and labor reform, something the government promised here, always promising that it would happen, as long as it gains support in Congress and fiscal space. The May Council, some business leaders said, has already begun to address the issues. The executive branch, which demanded the return of financing—credit for working capital has skyrocketed, as has default rates—insisted on his request for equivalent conditions of openness, especially with China. A demand in line with Trump's policy.
An industrialist, at his side, questioned the high dollar costs companies are experiencing, the varying speeds of tax cuts and official trade opening, and the government's lack of a growth plan beyond the progress made in macroeconomic stability. "The microeconomic sector requires attention. It's beginning to generate unemployment in the suburbs. There's a serious problem for SMEs, which currently can't obtain financing, and if they do, they can't repay the loan with high rates and low activity. On top of that, we're paying taxes from the old world," he said, referring to the Kirchnerist tax burden and the Mileist liberalization.
Rural workers remain confident despite suffering from taxes and high costs in dollars. "October 27th will be peaceful," expressed Nicolás Pino, president of the Rural Society, who said that the support from the United States generated "confidence." He added that they believe Milei and his team will push for a rethink in Congress for the second part of his term. A representative of North American companies in Argentina said something similar, letting it be known that "it will be the governors' time," especially for "legislative issues." Argentine companies in key sectors are willing to invest. The US Secretary of the Treasury publicly requested special treatment for these companies.
While the government is trying to put out the fire in the financial and currency world to pave the way for increasingly close elections, some business owners believe the "connection" with what's happening in the people's square meters has been lost. They point to Milei's concert at the Movistar Arena a few days ago. "It's something that happened to Macri," recalled the president of an industrial company. He recounted that while having coffee on Alem and Peña streets in this city, he overheard what five people at an adjacent table were saying. "I can't pay the bills; I can't afford it; it's not selling," he listed, and then issued a warning about the impact of the ruling party's unplanned productive reconversion: "Anyone who lives on Ingeniero Budge isn't going to work in a mine."
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