Last Saturday, during the inauguration of the traditional agricultural-livestock sample in the Argentine Rural Society (MRS) in Palermo, the classic opening speeches were repeated, although with two striking data: neither Vice President Victoria Villarruel nor the presidential advisor Santiago Caputo attended the event. A gesture that did not go unnoticed and suggested that the “small table” of power no longer function as such.
But beyond that political data, the speech of the president of the Mrs, Nicolás Pino, was the most eloquent: not because of its clarity, but for its crudeness. Instead of showing social commitment or strategic vision, he dedicated himself to demanding sectoral benefits with total self -confidence, even when the arguments touched the absurd.
For example, he claimed the President of the Nation with a decrease in gross income tax, ignoring that this tax is not national but provincial, and that his administration depends on the governors in the Federal Investment Council. It was an explicit sample of tax ignorance, but also of political opportunism: demand without knowing, or taking charge.
Nor was the head of the Buenos Aires government, Jorge Macri, who said that the producers with fiscal domicile in the city were exempt from the tax on agricultural activities. But he omitted to explain that, according to the multilateral agreement, those taxpayers pay only for 15 % of the total amount, and even less if they export, since the tax is reinstated.
Another classic order was the elimination of retentions, justified – according to the Mrs. – as a lock to production. What they did not say is that it was the agricultural sector itself that, in the social dialogue promoted by the Church in 2001-2002, proposed to implement withholdings to stabilize the economy after the collapse of convertibility. At that time, agro endorsed a 33 % retention as necessary. Today, they conveniently forget their own story.
They also claimed a “urgent” labor reform, with axis in the creation of a labor cessation fund that replaces compensation and avoids judgments. But they omitted that these conflicts would not exist if the current labor laws were fulfilled. According to historical data of the UATRE guild, about 60 % of the rural personnel were unregistered. A recent example was the case of the “Tiktokero pawn”, dismissed without rights or any support.
They also requested soft credits for the sector, not to mention that banks already offered 50 % annual financing, while a common citizen accessed 127 % rates. They also demanded benefits for the purchase of imported machinery, ignoring the damage that implies for the national industry based in Santa Fe and Córdoba. The message was clear: the rest of the country doesn’t matter.
All this shows that this sector of the link table – the most concentrated, which represents 20 % of producers but concentrates 80 % of production – does not defend small and medium producers. Rather it ignores them. In fact, neither Agrarian Federation nor Coninagro nor Carbap supported such an agenda.
In the same act, the president of the Nation was not far behind. In his speech, he ignored the origin of the withholdings implemented in 2002 and omitted that his current economic team participated in his reinstatement in 2018. He described them as “nefarious and sinister”, without historical context or technical precision, and with a purely ideological approach based on Excel forms.
The president said that eliminating withholdings would allow internal prices to international prices. But he forgot a key variable: salaries in Argentina do not even remotely approach global standards. In that context, freeing prices without improving income would be to condemn millions of Argentines to destitution.
As usual, social justice attacked, accusing it of promoting ascending mobility and allowing young people from popular sectors to access the university. According to his gaze, that represents a threat to the economic caste, which does not tolerate someone “below” to get better results, as evidenced in the recent exams of medical residences.
By way of closing, he announced a decrease of 20 % in grain withholdings and 26 % in meat products. But he omitted that, in the days after the end of the previous decline, the Central Bank lost USD 372 million in reserves. Nor did he explain that the Government still does not comply with the agreement with the IMF, which requires raising the retentions to the top provided in the 2023 budget. The next expiration, on August 1, for USD 800 million, remains without a guarantee of coverage.
In addition, the government continued to face the producers with the governors, withheld funds that had been transferred for more than a year. Thus he managed to artificially sustain the fiscal surplus, cutting the execution of the fuel tax ($ 180,000 million) and retaining contributions from the national treasure for $ 700,000 million. Meanwhile, effective co -participation remained below 20 %.
As if that were not enough, the workers were required to start returning the ANSES credits granted in 2023, with discounts of up to 40 % and monthly installments that were around $ 50,000. All this in the middle of a sustained operation with the Sustainability Guarantee Fund, which was used to intervene in the bond market and contain financial dollars. Until now, no one requested public reports on that use between March and June 2025.
The act in Palermo was not just a postcard of rural power: it was a raw radiography of how an elite intends to shield itself tax and labor, while the rest of the country pays the invoice.
