Inside Argentina’s New Government, with Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich

[FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW] “We decided to change this paradigm from one day to another, and in one month, we have cut our budget in 5 percent of the GDP. It’s historical … The President declared that Argentina was in zero deficit.”

In this episode, I sit down with Argentina’s Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich. We dive into the radical changes her country has experienced since Javier Milei was elected President.

“We are deregulating the economy. We are simplifying the economy. We are going to do a huge process of privatization,” says Minister Bullrich. “We have a very huge state. We have to work to have less state, and more private business. That is very important for Argentina.”

What are the principles that the new government is operating on? What economic and security policies are being implemented? And what are the biggest threats currently facing the Argentine Republic?

“Our biggest issue is the new networks—the linking of criminal organizations with rogue states [such] as Iran, or criminal and terrorist organizations [such] as Hezbollah,” says Minister Bullrich. “Hezbollah—they are businessmen or businesswomen that are there in the city. But they take criminals of Brazil, or Paraguay, or Argentina, and they pay them. So they do the work. They do smuggling, they do narcotrafficking … and they send the money to Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jan Jekielek:
Minister Patricia Bullrich, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.

Minister Patricia Bullrich:
Thank you very much. It’s my pleasure.

Mr. Jekielek:
Welcome to America. We have been watching the presidency of Javier Milei with very open eyes. There are very quick changes happening in Argentina.

Minister Bullrich:
Yes, we are making changes in a very short time, but very deep and profound changes.
We have an objective, because for 70 years, Argentina always had populism, and always we did the same things. Then the budget of the state was increased. The people became dependent on the state, so we now have inflation, deficit, and eternal crisis.

We decided to change this paradigm as quickly as possible. In one month, we have cut our budget by 5 percent of the GDP. It’s historical. We are removing all the obstacles that Argentina has had for so many years. The Argentine people said that we are not going to change in any way. It is impossible. Now they are looking at and feeling this change. What is happening with the presidency of Javier Milei is so important for Argentina.

Mr. Jekielek:
What principles are you following?

Minister Bullrich:
The principle is liberty. Argentina was a country captured by the mafia.
For everyone, in every state, in every company, in every union, you have illegal business going on. If you try to do a business, it is impossible. You have obstacles one, two, three, and four. In some of those steps you have to give a bribe to do business.

We are changing all those regulations. It is a deregulation of the economy and a simplification of the economy. We are going to do a huge process of privatization. As you know, as I am Minister of Homeland Security, and we are doing a change in security. We are making important changes, because in Argentina we have 10,000 riots per year, more or less 30 riots each day.

Mr. Jekielek:
30 riots a day?

Minister Bullrich:
Yes, 30 riots a day, with the roads blocked. We decided to cut that on the first day. The police are present in each one of the riots. We don’t allow people to be directly in the streets, and they have to be on the sides. Today, the people in Argentina think, “Now, the city is ours.” The city once belonged to the violent minorities that were on the streets every day. Every day it was impossible to go to work. But now, not only the city of Buenos Aires, but a lot of cities are now in the hands of the population, and now they can use them.

Mr. Jekielek:
Who were causing these 30 riots a day?

Minister Bullrich:
There are groups that were being fed by the state. The Peronist Party that was part of the state gave them subsidies, and then they wanted more and more and more subsidies. They stayed in the streets to ask the government every day to give them more. It was a never ending cycle.

Now we are discovering more or less two points of our GDP were managed by these so-called social organizations that are not really social organizations. They are the businessmen of poverty. They administer poverty with these subsidies that they manage. We are destroying all these networks that are false networks, and a fraud for the people.

Mr. Jekielek:
You’re saying that these people have made a business out of keeping people in poverty, and you’re breaking these networks up so that people can function once again. Some people may say that you’re using the heavy fist of the government and the police, and that you’re blocking the people.

Minister Bullrich:
Yes. You have the commission from the Organization of the American States [OAS] saying, “You are using force on these demonstrations.” Yes, we are using force, because during these last 20 years with 30 riots every day, it’s impossible to live in this country. The roads, the streets, and the center of the city are destroyed. The stores in downtown Buenos Aires are all shut every day because during the protests they came and broke everything. Yes, we have some criticism about this concerning human rights. No, the human rights of 46 million people were being violated. We have to fight for them every day.

Mr. Jekielek:
A lot of these organizations are actually state funded. That is just a very strange reality. But we see in many liberal democracies around the world right now people are doing this kind of activity. But when you trace it back, these large nonprofits even have government money going to them.

Minister Bullrich:
In Argentina, 30 percent of the population has a subsidy, so they don’t work. They can work, but they don’t work because the ideology is to stay at home. Your work is to go to the mobilization. You go to the street, and you block the traffic. You block the traffic and the streets, and that is your work, with your money coming from the people.
We are destroying those networks and we are giving back liberty to the people to choose their life.

Mr. Jekielek:
How are you incentivizing the 30 percent that were on subsidy to begin working again?

Minister Bullrich:
We posted a very short telephone number to call, for example. In one month we have had more than 80,000 people call in to say they don’t want to go to the demonstrations. They don’t want to go because they want to support the government, but they say they are given a subsidy. These organizations were giving the subsidy, not the people. We received a lot of denouncements.

Last week, we had the most terrible case. One man in charge of a state office in a province used the subsidies to ask sexual favors of 70 women. He said, “I will give the subsidy money if you give sexual favors to all the people that work in the state government.”

Mr. Jekielek:
This is an astonishing level of corruption.

Minister Bullrich:
Yes. It’s corruption and it’s the misuse of power. Argentina has been in this for a lot of years. But in these 20 years, it was like everyone was dependent on the state. The people said, “No,” and now we have a libertarian president. He is saying everything in front of the people.

He said, “We are going to shut a lot of offices in the state. We are going to give the budget to the people. We are going to cut out all the privileges for the unions and certain businesses that were like organized for the state. We are going to cut everything.” We are doing it, and we are in a very important moment, because we are changing the political culture in Argentina.

Mr. Jekielek:
In three months you have actually balanced the budget.

Minister Bullrich:
Yes, five points of the GDP, of the deficit. On January 30th, the president declared that Argentina was at zero deficit. Incredible. That is not seen in any country in the world. We sent a law to the parliament, but they began to say, “We will not cut this. We will not cut this.” They are not going to give the instruments the president needs. We say, “You don’t want to cooperate? Then we will take out the law and we will use other instruments that we have in our constitution.

Mr. Jekielek:
One of the problems is that many countries have an administrative state with career people who have been in the job for a very long time, and have their own way of doing things. Then politicians like Javier Milei or yourself come along and say, “We’re doing this differently.” They say, “Okay,” but they keep doing the same thing. They believe they know better. Even if a politician is elected with the will of the people it’s very hard to change things.

Minister Bullrich:
There is a book in England that says you are the most important person in the world. You are the minister. Now, the employees say you are the minister, and we are the ministry.

Mr. Jekielek:
Yes.

Minister Bullrich:
We are now changing that mentality and the ones that are working for the state have
to really do the steps, because if not, they can block everything. When you say, “This is the new plan that I want to do for security,” it can get lost in some offices. We are putting all the employees in a situation where they have to work, because they are paid to work. They cannot do whatever they want. They have to do the policies that the government wants. It’s a very important issue.

Mr. Jekielek:
What is the biggest issue for you today?

Minister Bullrich:
Our biggest issue is the new networks that link criminal organizations with
rogue states like Iran, or terrorist organizations like Hezbollah. They are in Bolivia. I have been there and signed an agreement with Iran. There are 700 people from Iran living in Bolivia. We have a border with Bolivia, and there are some terrorist forces from Iran there.

We have Hezbollah that are businessmen or businesswomen and they are in the city. But they take criminals from Brazil, Paraguay, or Argentina and pay them for smuggling and narcotrafficking and then they send the money to Hezbollah in Lebanon. We are really looking for and prosecuting all those people that are part of Hezbollah within our borders.

Mr. Jekielek:
I understand Argentina is trying to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization. Please tell us about that.

Minister Bullrich:
Hamas is not in Argentina and it has not been in Latin America up until today. But we have had 18 Argentinians that were kidnapped on the 7th of October in Israel. We have a very huge and important Jewish community in Argentina. We have to have to declare Hamas as a terrorist organization. We didn’t find them here in the United States, because we work together with the FBI and other agencies.

But we find some businesses in European countries that are linked with Argentina. Next week, the president is going to list Hamas as a terrorist organization. Hamas has said, “Argentina is our enemy.” Today we still have 12 Argentinians that have been kidnapped. It’s not only the Argentinians, it’s all the kids that have been kidnapped, and now more than 200 people in Israel. We are partners of Israel.

Mr. Jekielek:
You met with President Bukele of El Salvador yesterday. Is this another partnership that is developing?

Minister Bullrich:
You know that El Salvador was the most violent country in the world. They have made a huge change. All the murderers and criminal gangs are in jail. It’s a model that every democracy has to follow. Here in Washington, DC, you now have a lot of people that are from the Tren de Aragua. Remember that name, Tren de Aragua.

It’s a Venezuelan cartel that is now here in Washington and in New York. You have had 5 murders in the last month here in Washington, because they come here to have territory to sell narcotics or do drug trafficking. You will have a very big problem here. El Salvador has demonstrated that you can go against the gangs.

Mr. Jekielek:
What do you think of the policies in America in places like DC and New York? There’s a lot of leniency for all sorts of crimes unless you actually murder someone. Sometimes there’s even no bail required.

Minister Bullrich:
I read the other day that if you steal less than $900 in California it doesn’t matter and there won’t be any consequences. This means the rule of law will be destroyed. I think that is terrible.

Mr. Jekielek:
Of course, there are many more serious crimes than theft. But you’re saying this will lead to the loss of rule of law?

Minister Bullrich:
Yes, because the important thing is that you stole. It’s not how much you stole. It is very important for a country to have order and to have rule of law.

Mr. Jekielek:
This is just three months and there have been pretty huge changes in Argentina. What’s next?

Minister Bullrich:
We have to go deep with the changes. We have made about 10 percent of the changes that we want to do. We have a very huge state. We have to have less state and more private business. That is very important for Argentina. We have to work on developing all that we have.

We have the second largest reserve of oil and gas in the world, but we are importing gas. Because in the last 20 years, the price of gas in Argentina was 10 percent of the real price. We have to have to get to the real price to export our gas, export our oil, and develop all the products we can.

We have the greatest amount of agricultural products. But now, Brazil is in better condition than Argentina, because we have a tax for exportation. How can you have a tax to take out your products? It’s really incredible because it makes you less competitive in this economy. If we want to sell to the United States, to Brazil, or to any country, we have to be competitive. We have to be transparent. We have to have conditions for the investors to come to Argentina. Those are our next steps.

Mr. Jekielek:
You were once in the Peronist Party and had that view, but then you changed to a more libertarian view. How did that happen?

Minister Bullrich:
When I was 17-years-old, all the young people were in the Peronist party. I began to ask, “What does this mean? They are like the fascists.They are pro-Palestine. They are against the Jewish.” I began to ask a lot of questions about the meaning of the Peronist Party, and I decided to change. I am a doctor of political science. I studied this from my bachelor’s degree to my masters degree, and then up to my PhD. I began to understand the problems of society more deeply. I changed because I was on the wrong side of history.

Mr. Jekielek:
What happened that made you realize this?

Minister Bullrich:
The specific thing was the violence in Argentina. My movement was a youth movement. But I began to see that it was not only a youth movement, but also a violent movement. I saw that it put the values of my family and the values of my heritage in crisis, so I said, “No. I cannot be on the violent side of history. I have to be in peace and democracy.” The turning point was when I discovered that my movement was not really just a youth movement demonstrating in the streets. It was a violent movement, so I decided to get out of that movement.

Mr. Jekielek:
You came here to America. President Javier Milei is going to speak later today at this event. Please tell us more about why you came.

Minister Bullrich:
The president invited me and said, “You have to come with me. We have to demonstrate to all the world, to the American people and all the countries that will be at CPAC, the most important things today in Argentina—that we are changing in a very deep way with our economy and our security.

Mr. Jekielek:
Do you have any final thoughts as we finish up?

Minister Bullrich:
For us, it is very important to be part of a network of people, organizations, parties and presidents that can help us. We can work together. We are very grateful to have been invited to this important meeting. We now think that we are not so alone.

Mr. Jekielek:
Minister Patricia Bullrich. It’s such a pleasure to have you on the show.

Minister Bullrich:
Thank you very much.

Mr. Jekielek:
Thank you all for joining the Argentinian Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I’m your host, Jan Jekielek.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.