Mauricio Macri

Macri on a 200 Series train on Line A of the Buenos Aires Underground

Macri's administration worked on public transport in an attempt to reduce auto traffic in Buenos Aires. One project was the Metrobus, a bus rapid transit system added to the city's main streets. By the end of Macri's term as mayor, the 50.5-kilometre (31.4 mi) system had five lines and 113 stations.[36]

Other streets have bikeways to promote cycling, and the city created its EcoBici bicycle-sharing scheme. By the end of Macri's administration, about 155 km (96 mi) of bicycle lanes were constructed and 49 of the planned 200 automated bicycle-sharing stations were built.[37]

Several level crossings on the city's commuter-rail network were replaced by tunnels to improve road and rail traffic flow.[38] Under Macri, the city committed to two large rail-infrastructure projects: running viaducts through the center of the city to extend the Belgrano Sur Line, and raising the San Martín Line to eliminate level crossings.[39] Macri proposed the Red de Expresos Regionales project to link the city's main railway terminals and lines with a series of tunnels; as of 2018, in the term of his successor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the project is still in the planning stages.[40]

Macri with then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner during the inauguration of Autopista Illia in 2014

The Buenos Aires Underground, initially maintained by the national government, was the subject of a year-long dispute between him and the Fernández de Kirchner government. The national government sought to transfer it to the city, which Macri supported, but the budget and length of the transition period were contested. Macri announced that the city would take over the underground on 13 November 2012.[41] Line A, which was using wooden cars almost a century old, received a fleet of modern cars from the national government; Line H also received new cars.[42][43] Madrid Metro rolling-stock purchases for Line B were criticised, despite their technical superiority, for having a limited compatibility with the line and costing more than new trains for the city's commuter-rail network.[44]

Macri inspecting Metropolitan Police graduates

Buenos Aires, initially a federal district with limited autonomy, had become an autonomous city with the 1994 amendment of the Constitution of Argentina. The Argentine Federal Police, under national-government jurisdiction, still worked in the city and disputes over a potential transfer to a local force were unresolved when Macri was elected. He unsuccessfully tried to negotiate a transfer with President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. As an alternative, in 2008 Macri proposed a bill for the creation of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Police to work with federal police in the city. The bill, supported by the PRO and the Kirchnerite blocs, was rejected by Civic Coalition blocs and those aligned with Ibarra. Elisa Carrió, leader of the Civic Coalition, thought that Macri had abandoned the transfer request, and Ibarra said that the forces' duties would overlap.[45] The Metropolitan Police began with nearly 1,000 officers; the Federal Police had 17,000 officers working in the city. As a result, the metropolitan police worked on a small scale during the transition and more complex tasks were reserved for the federal police.[46]

Jorge Alberto Palacios was the first chief of the Metropolitan Police. A member of the police unit which rescued Macri from his kidnappers, Palacios was fired by then-President Néstor Kirchner for his alleged involvement in the murder of Axel Blumberg (for which he was acquitted). His appointment was controversial; Palacios had been investigated for concealing evidence of the 1994 AMIA bombing,[47] and he resigned a short time later.[48] The transfer of police protection to the city was completed during the Larreta administration.[49]

Macri and Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis)

A gay couple, José María Di Bello and Alex Freyre, started a judicial case so that they could get married in Buenos Aires. They challenged articles 172 and 188 of the civil code, which restrict marriage to people of different genders, as unconstitutional. Judge Gabriela Seijas agreed, and the couple married in 2009. It was the first same-sex marriage in Argentina. Macri did not appeal the ruling, saying that same-sex marriage was becoming universally accepted and individuals had a right to happiness. He compared the controversy with the sanctioning of divorce during the 1980s after the restoration of democracy in Argentina; highly controversial at first, it was eventually accepted.[50] A federal law permitting same-sex marriage was passed the following year.[51]

Macri's refusal to appeal the sentence affected his relationship with Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio (who later became Pope Francis). Bergoglio opposed same-sex marriage, and expected Macri to appeal the ruling. According to the archbishop, a lower-court judge should not establish the constitutionality of a law and Macri should have appealed the ruling in a higher court. Bergoglio was also annoyed by what he considered a lack of communication between himself and Macri.[52]

Macri announced his cabinet on 25 November 2015, about two weeks before he was due to take office.[66][67][68] The presidential transition was difficult. Macri and Kirchner met briefly; she provided no help to the new administration, and spoke only about the inauguration ceremony.[69] They disagreed about its location; Kirchner wanted it to take place at the Palace of the Argentine National Congress, and Macri favoured the White Hall of the Casa Rosada.[70][71] Plans for violence against Macri supporters near the Plaza during the inauguration were rumoured, and it was unclear who would control the police during the ceremony.[72] Judge María Servini de Cubría ruled that Kirchner's term of office ended at midnight on the morning of 10 December, and provisional Senate president Federico Pinedo was in charge of the executive branch for the 12 hours between the end of Kirchner's term and Macri's swearing-in.[73] Kirchner left Buenos Aires that day to attend the inauguration of sister-in-law Alicia Kirchner as governor of Santa Cruz Province.[74]

Macri took office on 10 December. He took the oath of office at the National Congress of Argentina after Vice President Gabriela Michetti. Macri delivered a 27-minute speech pledging "support for an independent judiciary, to fight corruption and drug trafficking, the internal union of Argentina, universal social protection, a 21st-century style of education and for everyone to have a roof, water and sewer" and greeted his electoral rivals.[75]

Macri receives the presidential sash from acting president Federico Pinedo.

He later went to the Casa Rosada and received the presidential sash in the White Hall from Senate President Federico Pinedo, accompanied by Michetti, Chamber of Deputies President Emilio Monzó and Supreme Court President Ricardo Lorenzetti. Minutes later, Macri went to the balcony and told the crowd in the Plaza de Mayo that "Argentines deserve to live better, and we are about to start a wonderful period for our country. I promise to always tell the truth and show where our problems are". He called on "all Argentines to follow [his] administration and alert them when [the government] makes mistakes".[76] After his swearing-in, Macri hosted a reception at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' San Martín Palace for heads of state Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Horacio Cartes (Paraguay), Juan Manuel Santos (Colombia), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Dilma Rousseff (Brazil) and King Juan Carlos I of Spain, and representatives of other countries who attended his inauguration.[77]

Macri with former president Bill Clinton, Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi, economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and London mayor Sadiq Khan at the Clinton Global Initiative

Macri began his presidency with economic difficulties carried over from previous governments. The Central Bank of Argentina's reserves were depleted; inflation was over 30 percent, although the widely discredited National Institute of Statistics and Census of Argentina (INDEC) provided a lower figure. The country had the highest tax rates in its history, but the government budget balance had an eight-percent deficit. There had been a sovereign default since 2001, and a conflict existed with hedge funds; tight currency controls had been in place since 2011. Since Argentina is a developing country, a global drop in commodity prices reduced trade revenue.[78]

One of Macri's first economic policies was the removal of currency controls, allowing Argentines to freely buy and sell foreign currencies. Argentina has had a floating exchange rate since then, with intervention from the Central Bank,[79] and the Argentine peso was devalued by 30 percent.[80] Another early policy was the removal of export quotas and tariffs on corn and wheat.[81] Tariffs on soybeans, the most lucrative Argentine export, were reduced from 35 to 30 percent.[82]

Argentine delegation to the World Economic Forum in Davos, in 2016. It was the return of the country to the conference after 11 years of absence.

Macri wanted to negotiate with holdouts and end the default to return to the international capital markets and strengthen the national economy.[83] Argentina offered to pay $6.5 billion to settle lawsuits on 5 February 2016, requesting that the prior ruling on its payments be lifted.[84] Although Cambiemos did not have a majority in either house of Congress, the bill was approved in March and Argentina faced a court hearing in New York on 13 April.[85] The court upheld judge Thomas P. Griesa's ruling, allowing Argentina to pay the 2005 and 2010 bondholders to whom it was still in default.[86] The payment, made with a bond sale,[87] was reportedly the end of the Argentine default, which had begun in 2001.[88]

On 19 January 2016, Macri attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with opposition figure Sergio Massa and part of his cabinet, in a search for investors.[89] He was one of the best-known figures at the meeting, along with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and US vice president Joe Biden.[90] It was the first time since 2003 that Argentina had participated in the forum.[91]

During Macri's first year, economic recovery was slow. Unemployment and inflation remained high and growth did not come as expected.[92] Kirchner's Careful Pricing price-control program, which benefited small and medium-sized enterprises, was kept with a revision of its included products. The government began several public-works projects to stimulate the economy and help the construction sector.[93] Political intervention in the INDEC figures ended, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) declared in November 2016 that Argentine statistics were again in accordance with international standards.[94] The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimated that Argentina would emerge from recession in 2017 or 2018, and lowered its country risk classification from seven points to six.[95]

The economy worsened in 2018: inflation remained high, due in part to a trade deficit. The production of soy, the country's main export, had been reduced by a drought which was among the worst natural disasters in the world that year.[96] The US Federal Reserve increased its interest rates, which raised the price of the US dollar against other currencies.[97] The Central Bank of Argentina increased the interest rate to 60 percent, but could not hold off inflation.[98]

Macri announced on 8 May that Argentina would seek a loan from the IMF. The initial loan was US$50bn.[99] Federico Sturzenegger, president of the Central Bank, resigned a week later. Macri replaced him with Luis Caputo, and merged the ministries of treasury and finances into a single ministry led by Nicolás Dujovne.[100] The US–Turkey diplomatic conflict caused a new increase on the US dollar. As a result of the crisis, the tariffs on soy exports were restored. Caputo resigned, and Guido Sandleris replaced him as president of the Central Bank.[101] The IMF expanded the loan with an extra 7 billion, on the condition that the Central Bank would only adjust the price of the peso against the US dollar under certain conditions. The 2019 budget reduced some expenditures and increased some taxes, in order to completely avoid a deficit.[102]

Macri announcing an investment deal for the Vaca Muerta shale deposit in Patagonia

Prices for public utilities, such as electricity, gas and water, were fixed in 2002 by president Eduardo Duhalde during the 1998–2002 Argentine great depression. The Kirchners kept them fixed, and the state subsidized them to compensate for inflation, which rose by nearly 700 percent during their government.[23] Investment in the utility sectors decreased, and generation and distribution networks deteriorated. Argentina lost its self-sufficiency, and went from an energy exporter to an importer.[103] The cost of energy imports increased the trade deficit and the inflation rate, and power outages became frequent.[104] The Kirchners left the grid on the brink of collapse,[105] while their lavish subsidies were a large factor in the fiscal deficit that harmed the overall economy.[23]

In 2016, Minister Juan José Aranguren arranged the removal of state subsidies for electricity, gas and water, which caused a huge increase in prices for those utilities. The increases were met with protests in several cities.[106] Because mandatory public hearings had not been held on the price increases, these were annulled by the courts. The Supreme Court upheld a temporary halt of the price increase for residential customers in September 2016.[107]

Seeking to increase energy production, Macri signed an investment deal for the Vaca Muerta shale deposit in Patagonia. Roughly the size of Belgium, Vaca Muerta has the second-largest reserve of shale gas in the world. To finalise the deal, the unions negotiated flexibility in labour costs, which had been the main drawback to industrial development in the area. The Neuquén Province government pledged to improve roads and general infrastructure.[108]

Human rights organizations had aligned themselves with the governments of both Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, even in topics unrelated to human rights, and often worked as their spokesmen. They continued this role after 2015, when Macri defeated the Kirchnerite candidate in the presidential elections,[109] which undermined the legitimacy of the organizations in Argentine society.[110] Macri maintained a distant relation with those organizations, and did not seek their support, but did not openly confront them. They kept their funding and the institutions under their control, and the trials of military personnel for crimes in the Dirty War (1974–1983) continued. Nevertheless, the organizations continued their opposition to Macri.[111] His cabinet was divided on an approach to take: whether to directly confront the organizations and remove their state financing, or to take an active role in their activities and replace their leaders with less politically motivated figures.[112] The general policy, however, was to ignore the disputes and focus the activities of the government towards more pressing matters, such as the economy.[113]

The government modified the public holiday for the Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice, which makes reference to the 1976 Argentine coup d'état, to allow it to be celebrated on a movable date. This ruling was met with huge criticism.[114] The ruling was reverted some days later, and the holiday was kept at the fixed date of 24 March.[115]

The #NiUnaMenos movement, which advanced a feminist agenda in Argentina since 2015, stayed strong during the Macri presidency. Macri said during the 2018 opening of the National Congress that, although he was anti-abortion, he wanted the Congress to have an abortion debate and discuss a bill for a new abortion law.[116] As of 2018, abortion was only legally allowed for rapes and cases that may threaten the mother's health. The feminist movement organized several demonstrations in the following months, in support of the voluntary termination of pregnancy abortion bill that was proposed in Congress. The proposal, however, became highly polarizing. The country has a strong conservative catholic population, particularly in the less-populated provinces, who rejected the bill. This polarization was unrelated to the political polarization of the country, and the legislators of both Cambiemos and the Justicialist Party (PJ) were divided on the vote.[117] The bill was approved by the chamber of deputies in June, but opposition became more organized after its approval[118] and the Senate rejected the bill, by 38 to 31 votes.[119]

Mauricio Macri, US president Donald Trump and their respective first ladies, at the White House in the United States

During Macri's presidency, Argentina's foreign relations shifted substantially from those under Kirchner. He immediately proposed action against Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela for human-rights abuses and to remove that country from Mercosur.[120] This shift was part of a change in the Latin American pink tide.[121] The other countries in the bloc also opposed Maduro's socialist government, and prevented Venezuela from taking the pro tempore presidency of Mercosur. The bloc sought a trade and cooperation agreement with the European Union and closer ties with the Pacific Alliance.[122] Macri agreed with Brazilian president Michel Temer to guarantee free trade between their countries.[123] Macri and Temer increased their interest in better trade relations with Mexico, the second-largest economy in Latin America, after mexican-american relations started to turn sour under the Trump administration.[124]

Argentina and Venezuela had troubled relations at the time. The 2017 Venezuelan Constituent Assembly election was considered illegal by Argentina, which does not acknowledge the legislative body established by it.[125] Macri also removed the Order of the Liberator General San Martín award from Maduro.[126] Argentina signed the Declaration of Lima, which established the Lima Group, a supranational body of countries that consider Venezuela to be under a dictatorship and want to restore its democracy.[127] Maduro was re-elected in the 2018 Venezuelan presidential election and took office for a new term on 10 January 2019. This started the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis, as many countries believed that Maduro had committed electoral fraud. Argentina and Brazil, under the newly elected Jair Bolsonaro, refused to acknowledge Maduro as a legitimate ruler. They instead acknowledged Juan Guaidó, who was appointed president of Venezuela by the National Assembly.[128]

Macri and German chancellor Angela Merkel during the 2017 G20 Summit in Hamburg

Macri also shifted Argentina's relations with the United States. During a visit in 2016, president Barack Obama praised him: "I'm impressed because he has moved rapidly on so many of the reforms that he promised, to create more sustainable and inclusive economic growth, to reconnect Argentina with the global economy and the world community". Obama announced that the US would declassify its military and intelligence records of the 1970s Dirty War.[129] Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra supported Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election, which was won by Republican Donald Trump. Macri tried to remain in good terms with the US after the Trump was elected president. In 2019, Trump declassified more than 5,600 US documents about the Dirty War.[130]

Macri maintained the Argentine claim in the Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute. However, he took a less-confrontational stance towards the United Kingdom and allowed more flights between Argentina and the islands. Relations between Argentina and the UK improved greatly, but both Argentine and the United Kingdom maintain their respective claim on the islands.[131]

Macri acknowledged Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela during the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis.

Macri changed Argentina's position on conflicts in the Middle East. During Macri's first week in office, he voided the memorandum of understanding between Argentina and Iran, which would have established a joint investigation of the 1994 AMIA bombing, a terrorist attack on a Jewish organization for which Argentina had blamed Hezbollah and Iran. The memorandum had been ruled unconstitutional by the judiciary, a ruling which was appealed during Kirchner's presidency. Macri withdrew the appeal, upholding the original ruling.[132] He distanced himself from Iran and encouraged continued investigations of the AMIA bombing and the death of Alberto Nisman, a prosecutor investigating the case.[133] Those cases and Nisman's probe into Cristina Kirchner involvement with Iran have special importance for Argentina–Israel relations, and ambassador Carlos Faustino García and Israeli diplomat Modi Efraim praised Macri for encouraging the investigations.[134] In July 2016, it was announced that Argentina would grant asylum to 3,000 refugees of the Syrian Civil War.[135]

Mauricio Macri during the electoral campaign of 2017

The 2017 Argentine legislative election renewed a third of the seats in the Senate and half in the chamber of deputies.[136] The election was considered a referendum on the presidency of Macri up to that point. Kirchner, leader of the opposition, ran for senator for the populous Buenos Aires province. She left the PJ to avoid the primary elections and created a new party, Citizen's Unity. Esteban Bullrich, minister of education, was the candidate of Cambiemos in the district. Kirchner and Bullrich had a close tie in the primary election, and Kirchner prevailed by just 0.21 percent of the vote.[137]

The electoral campaign, however, was largely ignored, as the media was focused on the ongoing controversy over the disappearance of Santiago Maldonado (see below). Kirchner used the case in her political campaign, stating that Maldonado was the victim of a forced disappearance, similar to those of the Dirty War.[138] Maldonado was found dead a few days before the general elections, and the circumstances and autopsy refuted Kirchner's theory. Cambiemos won in thirteen of the twenty-three provinces of Argentina, and in the five most-populated districts.[136] Kirchner ended in a distant second place, as a result of the higher turnout for the general elections.[139]

Sergio Burstein was the leader of a group of people whose relatives died in the AMIA bombing. Macri was charged in a 2010 wiretapping case, suspected of spying on Burstein and his brother-in-law Néstor Daniel Leonardo. Macri denied the charges. Judge Norberto Oyarbide indicted him, and Federal Chamber members Eduardo Farah, Eduardo Freiler and Jorge Ballestero confirmed the indictment. It was suspected at the time that Macri had organized a clandestine spy network with the aid of Jorge Alberto Palacios and Ciro James. The case was transferred to judge Sebastián Casanello, who ordered further investigation. It was learned that Macri had little knowledge about Palacios' daily activities and his minister, Mariano Narodowski, had appointed James. Franco Macri, the president's father, admitted to hiring private agencies to spy on Daniel Leonardo.[149]

Although Casanello dismissed the charges in 2015,[150] Leonardo appealed the ruling; the dismissal was upheld several months later in federal court. Farah, Freiler and Ballestero voted for acquittal; others involved in the case, including Palacios, are still under investigation.[149]

In 2016, the Panama Papers were leaked, comprising 11.5 million documents detailing offshore entities owned by people from many countries. Macri was listed as a director of Fleg Trading from 1998 to 2009. He did not declare his involvement in 2007, when he became mayor, or in 2015, when he became president. Prosecutor Federico Delgado asked the judiciary to determine if Macri "maliciously failed to complete his tax declaration". Macri argued that he did not report his involvement because he was not a stakeholder and did not receive money from it.[151] The company was established by his father to run a failed Brazilian business.[152] Macri owns other foreign accounts with properly-disclosed transactions,[153] and said that he would file a judicial "declaration of certainty" to affirm his statements.[154] A similar company, Kagemusha, was discovered several months later. It was established in 1981 by Franco Macri, with his then-22-year-old son as its vice president.[155]

On 20 September 2017, civil judge Andrés Fraga determined that, in Fleg Trading Ltd, Mauricio Macri accepted the position of director for the sole and only effect of designating a replacement and resigning, and that in Kagemusha he did not even tacitly accept the position of director for which he was appointed by Franco Macri. The ruling added that he was not a shareholder in either of the two companies, that he did not receive any dividends or profits, did not participate in the business decisions, nor was he the owner or co-owner of any current bank account of the companies.[156]

Gerardo Morales of the UCR was elected governor of Jujuy Province in the 2015 elections. Although the UCR was part of Cambiemos in federal politics, it was allied with Sergio Massa in the province. Morales was the first non-Peronist governor in the province since 1983.[157] He opposed activist Milagro Sala, accusing her of leading a government parallel to that of Eduardo Fellner.[158] According to Morales, Sala led a violent and coercive group and children were forced to join her party to attend school.[159] When he was elected governor, Morales ordered all organizations to operate though banks instead of on a cash basis to retain their legal standing.[160] Sala began a protest in front of the government plaza, but most of her supporters accepted Morales's edict.[161] Prosecutor Viviana Montiel asked local judge Raúl Gutiérrez to order Sala's arrest for causing a disturbance and encouraging crime. Gutiérrez agreed, and Sala was arrested on 16 January 2016.[162]

After Sala's arrest, she was charged with embezzlement in connection with housing construction. Although her initial charges were dropped, she remained in jail on the later ones. The case generated international criticism, and the United Nations and the Organization of American States requested her release. Macri said that the case was under provincial, not federal, jurisdiction.[163] Amnesty International considers “that Milagro Sala is being criminalized for peacefully exercising her rights to freedom of expression and protest” and, along with other human rights groups, have called for the granting of precautionary measures to guarantee the liberty of Milagro Sala, along with the exercise of freedom of expression and the right to social protest in Argentina.[164][165][166] The Supreme Court refused to hear the case, which continues in the province.[167]

Demonstration in support of Maldonado during the Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice.

The Benetton Group has territories at the Chubut Province, and the Mapuche indigenous people claim that those territories belonged to them. Facundo Jones Huala, from the Resistencia Ancestral Mapuche group,[168] was jailed because of violent protests, and a group of eight people organized a picketing protest at the National Route 40, advocating for his liberation. The road was completely blocked by stones, trees and fire. Judge Guido Otranto instructed the Argentine National Gendarmerie (GNA) to clear the blockade and disperse the protesters. The protesters reacted violently, then escaped from the GNA. Some of them swam across the nearby Chubut River and others hid in the adjacent forest.[169]

One of those protesters was Santiago Maldonado, and his whereabouts were unknown after the incident. Kirchnerist and human-rights organizations considered that Maldonado was a victim of a forced disappearance, and posited that he could be the first victim of a wider plan of political repression.[170] Other theories were proposed during the investigation: that he escaped to Chile, that he was hiding, or that he had been murdered some days before in an unrelated crime and was never in the protest at all (the protesters wore hoods). It was also proposed that he could have drowned, but the Mapuches held control of the area and impeded access by the GNA. When the GNA did enter the area, the corpse was found in the river.[171] An autopsy confirmed his identity, that the body had no signs of blows or injuries, and that he died by asphyxia and hypothermia. The judicial case was closed a year later, as the judge ruled that there was no forced disappearance and that there was no further evidence pointing towards anything other than an accidental drowning.[172]

•  Argentina : Grand Master of the Order of the Liberator General San Martín[173]
•  Argentina : Grand Master of the Order of May[174]

Arms of Mauricio Macri as member of the Order of Isabella the Catholic

•  Brazil: Grand Collar of the Order of the Southern Cross, awarded by Michel Temer[175]
  • Grand Collar of the Order of Industrial Merit of São Paulo, awarded by the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo[176]
•  France: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, awarded by François Hollande[177]
•  Italy: Grand Officer of Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity, awarded by Giorgio Napolitano[178]
•  Italy: Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, awarded by Sergio Mattarella[179]
•  Mexico: Grand Cross of the Order of the Aztec Eagle, awarded by Enrique Peña Nieto[180]
•  Netherlands: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion, awarded by Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands[181]
•  Norway: Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav, awarded by King Harald V[182]
•  Spain: Knight of the Collar of the Order of Isabella the Catholic, awarded by Felipe VI of Spain[183]