Latin America’s left slams Argentina’s austerity plan, but remains mum about Cuba’s | Opinion

What irony! Venezuela’s dictator, Mexico’s president and other old-guard Latin American leftist leaders are lashing out against Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei’s sweeping austerity measures. But they’re remaining shamefully silent about Cuba’s newly-announced austerity package, which is much more drastic than Argentina’s.

Indeed, Cuba’s dictatorship announced on Monday measures that included a 500% increase in gasoline prices to tackle the island’s economic crisis. Referring to the massive price increases, Cuban finance minister Vladimir Regueiro said on state television that “the measures are aimed at reviving our economy.”

By comparison, Argentina’s Milei, a free-market zealot who took office a month ago and inherited an equally serious economic crisis, ordered stringent belt-tightening measures that led to a 60% rise in gasoline prices. That’s a small fraction of Cuba’s gasoline hikes, which makes Milei look like a champion of compassion for the poor next to Cuba’s communist leaders.

And yet, Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and other leaders of Latin America’s Jurassic left remained conspicuously silent about Cuba’s “paquetazo,” as they usually refer to austerity measures by pro-free market governments.

On Dec. 29, Maduro called Milei’s deep cuts in state subsidies “insane,” and described Argentina’s austerity package as “a dictatorial decree from the neo-Nazi ultra-right Argentine president eliminating all the rights of the people.” Milei “is a construct, an elaboration of Zionism and Trumpism,” Maduro added.

Mexico’s left-of-center populist president, Andres Manuel López Obrador, said shortly after Milei’s announcement of his economic plan that “I don’t agree with those policies. It’s like going back to the past, to things that don’t work.” He added, “It’s the same that has been done in the past, only that with now more showmanship, more circus, more theater.”

Colombia’s leftist populist leader, Gustavo Petro, suggested on Dec. 13 (referring to Milei’s free market policies) that the Argentine president is supporting “freedom for those who have money.”

Yet, at the time of this writing, neither Maduro nor Lopez Obrador nor Petro have uttered a word of criticism toward Cuba’s drastic austerity package. In fact, they have had nothing but praise for Cuba’s dictatorship, which hasn’t allowed a free election or freedom of expression for the past 65 years.

What’s more, Venezuela and Mexico are subsidizing Cuba’s regime with oil shipments to help keep the island’s lights on.

I’m not sure that Milei’s economic plan will work. But the new Argentine president deserves the benefit of the doubt: He was democratically elected by a massive 56% of the vote, nearly 12 percentage points over his rival.

And the Argentine people’s current hardships should not take anybody by surprise, because Milei repeatedly warned during his campaign that things would get much worse before they got better if he won the presidency, because he was inheriting an economic disaster.

Argentina’s previous government of left-of-center populist Alberto Fernandez had raised the country’s poverty rate from 35% to 40% of the population, and left an annual inflation rate of more than 140%. In addition, in an effort to win votes, it had increased subsidies and frozen consumer prices, which created a repressed inflation that exploded after the election.

Milei faces an uphill battle. He doesn’t have a majority in Congress, and Argentina’s CGT Central Worker’s Confederation, an umbrella group for some of the country’s biggest unions, has called for a nationwide strike against his economic measures on Jan. 24, only 44 days after he took office. Ironically, the CGT had not called for a single strike during the previous government’s four-year term, despite an explosion of inflation and a steep rise in poverty rates.

But, as long as Milei respects the constitution, he deserves the benefit of the doubt. Unlike the Cuban dictatorship, he was democratically elected, and he is doing exactly what he promised to do.

The presidents of Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia and others who are criticizing Milei’s economic measures while turning a blind eye to Cuba deserve a medal for political hypocrisy.

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