Musk is “extremely interested” in Argentina’s vast lithium deposits, according to Milei. So too, apparently, is the US Government and many other US companies. Milei will happily oblige.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei has been in power for less than a month but he is already causing quite a stir. The omnibus bill his government has sent to the National Congress will, if passed, have major ramifications for the economy, politics and society. Workers’ rights will be pulverised; up to 41 state-owned companies, including the YPF oil company, will be privatised; the right to protest will be severely curtailed; taxes will increase, especially for the working and middle classes; public salaries, pensions and other benefits will be frozen as official annual inflation reaches 220%; and environmental laws and regulators will be put to the chainsaw.
This is austerity not on steroids but on angel dust. Rather than reverting Argentina’s decades-long economic malaise, it is likely to make it a whole lot worse.
The government says there is no money to maintain public spending while continuing to service the country’s odious debt, which was largely a legacy of the disastrous economic policies of the former Macri government (2015-19), one of whose architects, former JP Morgan Chase banker Luis Caputo, is now Milei’s economy minister. Meanwhile, there is still no mention of replacing the peso with the dollar, presumably because Argentina’s government has no dollars to speak of, or doing away with Argentina’s central bank, which were two of the main planks of Milei’s election campaign.
In total, the government proposes to reform, eliminate or add 664 legal articles. They include a proposal to empower the executive branch to “authorize the entry into the country of troops and equipment of foreign armed forces for the purpose of exercises, training or protocol activities” as well as the deployment of Argentine forces abroad. Until now, such movements have needed the approval of Congress. Just as recently happened in Peru and Ecuador, Argentina could be about to fling its doors open to US and other foreign military forces. Given Milei’s geopolitical affinities, those forces will presumably include NATO’s and Israel’s.
The omnibus bill, bearing the Orwellian title of “Law of Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines,” comes a week after Milei passed the highly controversial Necessity and Urgency Decree, which came into force today (Jan 2, 2024). If the legislators in Congress approve the bill (still a big “IF” given how few MPs Milei’s Freedom Advances party has in the chamber), his government will be able to declare a public emergency in the economic, financial, fiscal, social, pension, security, defence, tariff, energy, health and social domains until at least December 31, 2025. Any declared emergency may be extended for a further two years, essentially covering Milei’s entire mandate.
Opening the Skies for Starlink
One potential beneficiary of the proposed reforms is the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who has already rubbed shoulders with Milei on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that Musk owns. Milei was one of the first guests on Tucker Carlson’s new show on X, which captured global attention with over 300 million screenings in 24 hours. Now, Milei wants to forge closer ties with the South African-born billionaire.
Musk’s satellite Internet service provider, Starlink, was the only private business Milei mentioned during his 15-minute speech announcing the reform program. From BA Times:
Among the 30 measures which the head of state announced by national broadcast was the de-regulation of satellite Internet services, in order to “allow for competition of foreign companies, such as Starlink,.”
Starlink is the satellite network run by tycoon Elon Musk, with whom Milei has a good relationship. Dys before the presidential inauguration, Milei acknowledged on social networks that he had had shared a “great conversation” with Musk.
Back then, Milei publicly thanked the businessman for his support on “X” (formerly Twitter, also owned by Musk): “I thanked him for defending the ideas of freedom and for supporting our work, especially taking into account all of which he represents as an icon for freedom worldwide.”
The head of state then dangled the possibility of a visit by Musk in 2024: “We stayed in touch for him to visit Argentina next year and to keep on bonding and working together.”
Argentina is one of surprisingly few countries in Latin America that haven’t signed on to Starlink’s services, the others being Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Guyana, Suriname Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize and, of course, Cuba. In the map below (courtesy of Wikipedia), the countries in green have approved and activated the company’s services.
The Lithium Trail
The opening of Argentinean space to Starlink is not the only way Musk stands to benefit from Milei’s proposed reforms. In a televised interview last Saturday (Dec 24) Milei was barely able to suppress his excitement that Musk had called him personally. The billionaire had told Milei that he is “extremely interested” in the country’s lithium. So too, apparently, is the United States Government, and many US companies in the United States, but they all need a legal framework that respects property rights.
Mirta: We have a lot of lithium in Jujuy.
Milei: You know what? Elon Musk called me. He is hugely interested in the lithium. Same goes for the US government. They just want to have property rights guaranteed.
The quiet part out loud. #Argentina
pic.twitter.com/UlrFL0zSHn
— taseenb (@taseenb) December 24, 2023
Lithium is a critical component of the green energy transition plans of advanced economies like China, the US and the EU. Also known as “the new oil,” the metal is used to make the lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles (EVs), smartphones, and wearables, though they could soon face stiff competition from alternatives such as sodium-ion batteries.
As regular readers know, Argentina is one of three South American nations (the others being Bolivia and Chile) whose borders intersect in the vast salt flat basins that have come to be known as “the lithium triangle.” This area not only accounts for roughly two-thirds of the world’s known reserves of lithium; its lithium is also much easier to extract than many other deposits.
The US has not exactly been shy about its interest in the region, not to mention all the other strategic resources Latin America boasts (rare earth minerals, oil and gas, fresh water…). Here’s the General of US Southern Command Laura Richardson speaking at the Atlantic Council almost exactly a year ago about the need for the US government and military to step up their game in the race for resources and influence in the region:
Rare earth elements, lithium, oil, light sweet crude, copper, gold, the Amazon, and fresh water.
This is what the United States wants to plunder from Latin America and the Caribbean. pic.twitter.com/Q9Rh5XP0jB
— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) January 21, 2023
A 2021 report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) laid out why the US sees Argentina as the most promising of the three Lithium Triangle countries. Here is a machine-translated excerpt about the report from an article in the Argentine newspaper Página 12:
“Argentina has the second largest lithium reserves in the world and is the fourth largest producer of lithium carbonate, behind Australia, Chile and China, and contributed 6 percent to the world supply with 33,000 metric tons in 2021,” says Andrew Sady in his report [for CSIS]. “Of the Latin American countries that have lithium reserves, Argentina’s market is most open to private sector investment… The federal government has not imposed any regulation on foreign investment in the lithium sector and allows the market to dictate the development of the industry.” For this reason, “several projections and experts agree that, within the next decade, [Argentina] is expected to be the country that implements the largest additional production of lithium. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence forecasts an increase of 360% by 2025.”
But there are a number of constraints on foreign mining activity in Argentina. What’s more, the management of rural land use is primarily the domain of provincial governments, not the federal state.
Since 2011, Argentina’s Rural Land Law (No. 26737) has set a limit of 15% on foreign land ownership in specified regions of the country while requiring that “rural land with the same foreign owner must not exceed 1,000 hectares in an arable zone.” The law also imposed a 4.5% limit on the total amount of rural lands that can be owned by foreign individuals or legal entities from the same country (as of July 2013, around 1.13% of the rural lands was owned by American investors).
In 2016, the Macri government loosened these rules to encourage foreign investment. If the Milei government’s omnibus is passed, it will do away with most, if not all, of the restrictions. This will have major implications for local indigenous communities, which are already bearing the brunt of the environmental damage caused by lithium mining, reports Pagina 12:
“When Milei talks about Elon Musk and lithium, we must keep in mind the rights of indigenous peoples and their right to prior, free and informed consultation as well as their right to decide about how their territories are managed… Florencia Gómez, a former director of the National Registry of Rural Lands, recalls that there has been a injunction in the Supreme Court since 2019 brought by “the communities of Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc together with the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation, which have warned about the irreversible damage that lithium and borate mining will cause.”
For mining companies, the opportunities will be rich and plentiful if Milei gets his way. Until recently, many parts of Latin America were witnessing a revival of resource nationalism. In February 2022, we reported that countries in the region were taking greater control of the revenues generated by the minerals and hydrocarbons produced within their borders, in particular when it came to lithium. There were also growing calls from workers, unions and indigenous communities for companies not only to mine but also to process and industrialise the white metal, where most of the real money is made.
Now, the opposite is happening, not just in Argentina but also Peru where the Dina Boluarte government has been quick to privatise the country’s lithium interests following the toppling of the democratically elected President Pedro Castillo just over a year ago. In Argentina, the environmental toll is likely to be brutal as the government takes a chainsaw to regulations on most forms of productive activities in protected ecosystems. From El País:
In environmental matters, the omnibus law – as it was called due to the wide variety of regulations that it repeals, transforms and creates – plans to modify the Glacier Law, passed in 2010, to allow mining activity in periglacial areas; the Native Forest Protection Law of 2007, to authorize deforestation in areas where it is currently prohibited or restricted; and the Environmental Protection Law for the Control of Burning Activities, to grant permits to start fires for productive or real estate purposes, which until now are heavily restricted or prohibited, depending on the area.
Lawyer Enrique Viale, a specialist in environmental law and author of the book The Ecological Collapse Has Already Arrived, warned that the reform is a “direct attack on the core laws of environmental protection,” and considered that it is the “gateway to big business.” “The modification of the Glaciers law is a long-held aspiration of transnational mining companies.”
For the moment, Elon Musk himself is staying shtum on the subject of Argentina’s lithium reserves. Perhaps he has learned a lesson in corporate diplomacy from the blowback he generated with his infamous July 24, 2020 tweet in which he smugly announced that “We will coup whoever we want” — a clear reference to the removal in late 2019 of Bolivia’s democratically elected President Evo Morales by the Bolivian military, at the behest of Bolivia’s far right and the United States government.
At the beginning of last year, General Laura Richardson made it abundantly clear in a speech to the Atlantic Council that the US government and military, and the corporations whose interests they faithfully serve, have their sights set on the strategic resources of South America, including rare earth elements, lithium, gold, oil, natural gas, light sweet crude (huge deposits of which have been found off the coast of Guyana, where the drums of war are growing louder), copper, abundant food crops, and fresh water.
The ultimate goal, she said, is to “box out” China, which dominates the global supply chain for lithium-ion batteries and is now South America’s largest trading partner and the second largest for Latin America as a whole, and Russia from those resources. The election of Milei, who has already withdrawn Argentina’s membership from the BRICS-plus grouping and now seeks to open up Argentina for Western trade, investment and military partnerships, is undoubtedly a step in that direction. Whether it lasts, only time will tell.
