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Javier Milei goes to war with Argentina’s airline unions

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Javier Milei goes to war with Argentina’s airline unions

Argentina’s airports have been repeatedly plunged into chaos as a clash escalates between libertarian President Javier Milei and workers at the country’s flag carrier, Aerolíneas Argentinas.

In the first major confrontation between Milei’s free market reform drive and Argentina’s powerful unions, strikes are threatening travel around the 1mn-square-mile country, as the start of the nation’s peak holiday season looms in December.

Labour unions representing employees at state-owned Aerolíneas Argentinas, which controls two-thirds of the domestic market, are demanding wage increases to compensate for the country’s triple-digit inflation. In recent months they have staged a series of strikes; they say the government has refused dialogue.

“We have two extreme, completely ideologically opposed sides fighting, and trapped in between we have a company and thousands of passengers,” said one Argentine airline executive. “Anything could happen.”

Stranded luggage and queues of frustrated passengers filled Buenos Aires’ city airport during the largest strike in mid-September, which cancelled all Aerolíneas flights for 24 hours. It affected 37,000 passengers and cost $2.5mn, according to the company.

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“It’s ridiculous . . . I’ve been waiting a year to see [Patagonian glacier] Perito Moreno and now I don’t think I’ll be able to,” a Spanish tourist complained to broadcaster TN. “I’m left with a bad image of how the country handles these things.”

Milei, a fierce opponent of the labour unions, has hit back with a hardline response. His administration has fired several pilots who took part in strikes and has tried to declare air travel an essential service as a means of banning strikes altogether, though the courts prevented this from taking effect. The government has also begun talks with private companies about ceding some Aerolíneas routes.

Milei on Tuesday issued a decree declaring the company “subject to privatisation” in order to speed up an effort to sell the group, which will require congressional approval.

“This company has cost the state billions of dollars, [which] have come out of the pockets of all Argentines, including many who have never stepped foot on a plane,” transport secretary Franco Mogetta told the Financial Times. “We insist it must be privatised.”

The clash is the most disruptive labour conflict so far for Milei, who won last year’s election on a pledge to cut public spending, deregulate the economy and sell public companies.

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Union bosses in other transport sectors are considering a general strike next month, which could cause much of the country to grind to a halt. Further air travel disruption is coming, said Juan Pablo Mazzieri, spokesperson for the association of airline pilots, which represents all of Aerolíneas’ more than 1,000 pilots. 

“We heard unanimous support for deepening the conflict at an assembly of 420 pilots [in late September],” he said. “Deepening the conflict means more strike days, more strike hours and other forms of direct action that we will announce soon.”

President Javier Milei is deregulating the air travel sector to attract more private companies © Matias Baglietto/Reuters

Aerolíneas Argentinas is an ideological flashpoint for Peronism, Argentina’s powerful left-leaning opposition movement, whose founder, former president Juan Domingo Perón, started the company in 1950.

It was sold off in 1989 amid a wave of privatisations under rightwing president Carlos Saúl Menem, but renationalised under leftwing Peronist president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in 2008 when it was it was in severe financial difficulty.

Today it is the largest state-run airline in Latin America. Only Bolivia and Venezuela have similar companies, analysts said.

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To shrink the airline’s footprint, Milei is deregulating the air travel sector to attract more private companies. Chile’s LatAm, then the second-largest operator, announced its departure from Argentina in 2020, citing the difficulty of operating with Argentina’s depreciating peso, high taxes and unusually strong labour union presence, and competing with the subsidised flag carrier.

Presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni last week said Aerolíneas has cost taxpayers $8bn since 2008 thanks to a bloated payroll, which he said includes almost 15 pilots for each of its 81 planes, who receive benefits such as heavily discounted plane tickets for their families.

Continuing to subsidise the company would undermine efforts to eliminate Argentina’s chronic fiscal deficit, the backbone of Milei’s plan to bring down inflation, Adorni added.

Aerolíneas Argentinas jets at an airport in Buenos Aires
A recent poll found 49.2% of Argentines supported privatisation of Aerolíneas Argentinas, while 46.9% opposed it © Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images

Ricardo Delpiano, editor of Chile-based air industry analysis website elaereo.com, said Aerolíneas had “sharply reduced its deficit” in recent years to $246mn in 2022 through efficiency improvements and upgrades to its service.

In 2023, the company received no money from the Treasury. But people familiar with its finances said that was largely because of its ability to charge for tickets abroad at the peso’s artificially inflated official exchange rate, while converting revenue at the lower parallel rate. The company also issued $100mn in debt last year via a trust.

Critics of the privatisation proposal argue Aerolíneas should be seen as a public service, rather than a company, because it is the only airline serving about 20 small cities that are unprofitable for private groups, improving connectivity across the vast country.

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“That connectivity stimulates [billions of dollars] of tourism, trade, development,” said Diego Giuliano, a lower-house Peronist lawmaker for Santa Fe province. “The people who think this is a good idea suffer from a Buenos Aires-centric view of Argentina.”

Delpiano said it would be “difficult” to find a buyer for Aerolíneas “given the company’s many unprofitable routes, and its high degree of labour conflict”.

But Milei’s allies in Congress argued that the unions’ disruptive strikes had strengthened the case for privatisation.

It is not clear whether the government has enough support to pass a privatisation bill, two of which have been presented to Congress. Its negotiators removed an article designating Aerolíneas Argentinas as “subject to privatisation” from a wider economic reform bill earlier this year because of pushback from legislators.

A May survey by pollster Trespuntozero found 49.2 per cent of Argentines supported privatisation of the airline, while 46.9 per cent opposed it. Pro-privatisation sentiment has dipped a few percentage points from 2023, but remains much higher than in 2015, when 24.4 per cent of respondents wanted the carrier taken out of state hands.

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Union leaders accused the government of deliberately stimulating the protests in order to damage the workers’ reputation and garner political support for privatisation.

Rodrigo Borrás, spokesperson for ground workers’ union APA, said the government had refused to “seriously negotiate”, and that wages had not been increased since before Milei took office in December, despite accumulated inflation of 95 per cent this year.

“The offers they’ve made have been almost provocative — a 1 per cent increase,” Borrás said. “This is the perfect way for them to trigger a conflict.”

The transport secretary denied that offers had been so low, claiming they were in line with pay rises offered to other public employees who have accepted pay deals.

“The problem is these unions are accustomed to decades of excessive privileges that all Argentines have been paying for,” he said. “Those privileges ended the day 56 per cent of Argentines elected Javier Milei as president.” 

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National Day of Mourning for Jimmy Carter: What It Means, and What’s Closed

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National Day of Mourning for Jimmy Carter: What It Means, and What’s Closed

A national day of mourning will be observed on Thursday for Jimmy Carter, who died on Dec. 29 at 100 years old.

In a proclamation after Mr. Carter’s death, President Biden called him “a man of character, courage, and compassion.”

In announcing the day of mourning, he said: “I call on the American people to assemble on that day in their respective places of worship, there to pay homage to the memory of President James Earl Carter Jr. I invite the people of the world who share our grief to join us in this solemn observance.”

The day of mourning will be held on the same day as Mr. Carter’s funeral at Washington National Cathedral. President Biden will deliver a eulogy at the funeral, and a eulogy written by Gerald R. Ford, who died in 2006, will be read by his son Steven Ford.

American flags at the White House, public buildings, military bases, naval ships and U.S. embassies around the world have been ordered to be flown at half-staff to honor Mr. Carter for the 30 days following his death.

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On Dec. 30, President Biden ordered that “all executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed on Jan. 9,” except those necessary for “national security, defense, or other public need.” Federal employees will still be paid for the day.

The Postal Service will suspend mail delivery and close post offices, but there will still be limited package delivery service, a spokesman said.

The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq will also be closed, as will the United States Supreme Court and other federal courts, along with the Library of Congress.

The most recent national day of mourning for a president came in December 2018, after the death of George H.W. Bush.

The history is long. The government shut down on June 1, 1865, for a day of “humiliation and mourning,” six weeks after Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed. Citizens were asked to assemble in “their respective places of worship” to remember the fallen president. Banks and insurance companies also closed, though the post office shut for only a half day.

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Presidents who died in office following Lincoln were also honored, including James Garfield, William McKinley, Warren G. Harding and Franklin Roosevelt.

Lyndon Johnson’s first presidential proclamation announced a day of mourning for John F. Kennedy, three days after he was assassinated in 1963.

In more recent times, comparatively routine deaths of presidents after their terms in office have also been marked by a day of mourning, including for Dwight Eisenhower in 1969, Harry S. Truman in 1972; Lyndon Johnson in 1973 and Richard Nixon in 1994.

Ronald Reagan was honored in 2004 and Gerald Ford in 2007.

Not only presidents have been commemorated with a day of mourning. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were each honored after being assassinated in 1968.

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Dollar drops on reports Trump will scale back tariff plans

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Dollar drops on reports Trump will scale back tariff plans

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The dollar fell on Monday following reports that president-elect Donald Trump’s administration is considering watering down a campaign pledge to apply sweeping tariffs on imported goods.

The US dollar index, which tracks the currency against a basket of six peers, fell 1 per cent in morning trade after The Washington Post reported that potential tariffs may be confined to critical imports.

In November, Trump had promised blanket 10 or 20 per cent duties on all trading partners.

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Chris Turner, global head of markets at ING, said the reports had sparked a “relief rally” in the euro against the dollar, with hopes that the region’s automakers could be spared. The tariffs might also “be less inflationary than first expected”, he added.

Shares in European carmakers, which have been hit in recent months by fears they would be targeted by the Trump administration, rallied. The Stoxx Europe 600 Automobiles & Parts index climbed 3.7 per cent, with BMW up nearly 6 per cent.

The euro was up 1.1 per cent against the dollar at $1.042, on track for its best day in more than a year. The single currency had been pushed to a two-year low by trade war worries. The pound, which was the best-performing G10 currency against the dollar last year, rose 1 per cent to $1.254.

Monday’s reports were “triggering some relief among investors that the initial tariffs won’t be as bad as feared”, sparking a “sharp reversal of recent US dollar gains,” said Lee Hardman, senior currency analyst at MUFG. More focused tariffs would help “to dampen [their] disruptive impact,” he added.

US government bonds, which have sold off in recent months as investors girded for higher inflation driven by broad tariffs, regained a little ground. The yield on the two-year US government bond, which moves with rate expectations, was down 0.02 percentage points at 4.26 per cent, as the price of the debt rose.

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The dollar sell-off comes after a strong rally for the world’s de facto reserve currency that began in early October, as the market began to price in a greater prospect of a Trump election win. “The market had correctly anticipated a Trump victory,” said Jane Foley, senior FX strategist at Rabobank.

Analysts and economists expect Trump’s pro-growth, potentially inflationary policies, to limit the number of times that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next year, boosting demand for the dollar relative to other major currencies. This was compounded by investor bets that the negative growth impact for the Eurozone would prompt the European Central Bank to cut rates more aggressively.

In mid-December, the Fed published economic forecasts that suggest interest rates will fall in 2025 by less than previously hoped. Last week, a top Fed official warned about the threat of resurgent US inflation after Trump takes power.

Investors expect the US central bank to cut rates at least once this year, with a 70 per cent chance of a second quarter-point cut. That probability increased slightly on Monday.

Expectations of interest-rate cuts by the European Central Bank were slightly pared back, with just under four quarter-point cuts priced in this year.

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How Jan. 6 will be different this year. And, who took home a Golden Globe award

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How Jan. 6 will be different this year. And, who took home a Golden Globe award

Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day.

Today’s top stories

Today is Jan. 6, the day Congress is scheduled to certify President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. The atmosphere is expected to be very different from four years ago, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Around 140 police officers were injured. While the FBI has classified the attack as an act of domestic terrorism, Trump has referred to it as a “day of love.” He has also promised to pardon people charged for their involvement in the attack.

Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell watches a video of rioters during a hearing of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on July 27, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

Brendan Smialowski/Pool/Getty Images


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Brendan Smialowski/Pool/Getty Images

  • 🎧 When Trump ran for president again, he embraced the idea that the violence on Jan. 6, 2021, was overblown and said there were no guns. NPR’s Tom Dresibach tells Up First that this claim is false. Trump also said his supporters at most “got a little out of hand” — a narrative that judges who heard the more than 1,500 cases have dispelled. Trump promised pardons on Day One in office but has been vague about who would receive them. Aquilino Gonell, who was a Capitol Police sergeant during the attack and whose injuries forced him to retire, says he feels betrayed by the election. “What did I risk my life for?” Gonell says.
  • ➡️ Some of the people who stormed the Capitol believed in the QAnon conspiracy theory that claims Trump is involved in a secret battle against evil members of the alleged deep state. After the attack, multiple social media platforms pushed to ban QAnon content. Here’s why it hasn’t gone away.
  • ➡️ There are subtle ways this year’s certification process will differ from 2021’s due to Congress passing new rules. These are some of the key changes.

CNN is fighting a defamation lawsuit in court today. After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, CNN reported as part of its investigation into claims of “black market rescues” that a security consultant was among those offering to evacuate people desperate to flee the country — for a price. When the story aired, a photo of Zachary Young, a security contractor who had offered to evacuate people from Afghanistan, was shown. Young says he sued CNN to clear his name.

  • 🎧 Young’s attorneys say his character was maligned, and he wasn’t doing it for individuals but for deeper-pocketed organizations like U.S. and European nongovernmental organizations. His attorneys claim he lost millions of dollars due to this story, according to NPR’s David Folkenflik. CNN apologized some months after the story first appeared, saying it shouldn’t have applied the “black market” label to Young. The network’s lawyers have taken a more aggressive tone, saying Young lied to CNN reporters and that the network couldn’t confirm he evacuated anyone as he claimed. Behind the scenes, some editors at CNN have expressed misgivings about the reporting.

The 82nd Golden Globes took place last night in Beverly Hills. Comedian Nikki Glaser hosted. The queer musical-thriller Emilia Pérez took home the move movie awards, including one for best musical or comedy film. On the television side, FX’s Shōgun led wins and took home awards in every category it was nominated for. Here’s the full list of last night’s winners.

  • 🎧 Though Emilia Pérez‘s big wins were no surprise, says NPR’s Mandalit del Barco, who was inside the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton Hotel last night, there were some surprising moments. The movie musical Wicked only took home one win for its box office achievement. In 2022, the Globes faced criticism after the Los Angeles Times reported there were no Black members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which used to hand out these awards. The organization has since been bought and formally disbanded. The number and types of voting members have been expanded to include more than 300 entertainment journalists from around the world.

Today’s listen

Palestinian artist Tamer Nafar performs during a festival in the town of Sakhnin in northern Israel on Oct. 23, 2016.

Palestinian artist Tamer Nafar performs during a festival in the town of Sakhnin in northern Israel on Oct. 23, 2016.

Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images

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The Arabic and Hebrew music landscape has been shaken up by the Israel-Hamas war. NPR’s Daniel Estrin says he didn’t listen to music for a long time after the Oct. 7 attacks as he just couldn’t stomach it. The music scene also reflected this. First, there was shock, then silence, as many musicians were not writing. Now, there is a burst of new music. Estrin spoke with Israeli music critic Einav Schiff and Palestinian musician Tamer Nafar about some of the songs on their playlists and to reflect on over a year of war.

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Jossiel Estefes "Onex stands beside his bike in a gas station in Connecticut during a ride.

Jossiel Estefes “Onex stands beside his bike in a gas station in Connecticut during a ride.

Mayolo López Gutiérrez


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Mayolo López Gutiérrez

Brothers Andrés and Eddie Lucero founded the South Bronx-based Aztec Rebels motorcycle club in 2016 after learning about the culture and politics of another Bronx-based motorcycle club. They dreamt of developing a space where they could hear their own music, speak their language and be understood. They started with five founding members. Since then, they have expanded to more than 20 full members. “People are always looking for a family, and that’s why sometimes they get into gangs. We want to be that place where Mexicans can come and be in a safe environment, without violence, but with a family,” Eddie says.

3 things to know before you go

A team of 100 researchers from the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford uncovered around 200 dinosaur footprints along five trackways in southeast England during a week-long excavation in June 2024.

A team of 100 researchers from the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford uncovered around 200 dinosaur footprints along five trackways in southeast England during a week-long excavation in June 2024.

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University of Birmingham

  1. Researchers found around 166-million-year-old footprint tracks at a limestone quarry in southeast England, providing insights into certain dinosaurs’ size and speed. Five trackways were uncovered: Four are suspected to be the giant 60-foot, 2-ton Cetiosaurus and the fifth a Megalosaurus.
  2. Congestion pricing was introduced yesterday in the center of New York City. The measure, which charges many drivers $9 to enter Manhattan at peak hours, went through despite a late attempt by New Jersey to stop it in court.
  3. A Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist has resigned from the Washington Post after the editorial page editor rejected her cartoon depicting media and tech giants submitting to President-elect Donald Trump.

This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.

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