The symbol of his policies is a chainsaw: President Javier Milei wants to slash the Argentine state and its expenditures down to a minimum. This was the campaign promise that carried him to election victory in November 2023, and it's now the basis for how he's running the government.

Following 15 years of deficit-based fiscal policy and three sovereign debt defaults since 2001, the majority of voters backed his proposed drastic program. But that support now appears to be crumbling. On April 23, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets throughout the country to protest his radical austerity measures.

According to police, the capital city of Buenos Aires alone saw some 100,000 demonstrators turn out; the University of Buenos Aires put the number at more than 500,000.

Gatherings also took place in many other university cities across Argentina, including Tucuman, Cordoba, Corrientes and Ushuaia. People even turned out in front of the Argentine consulate in Barcelona, Spain, to show solidarity with the demonstrators on the other side of the Atlantic. Various media described the protests as the largest in 20 years.

Milei's government has faced protests ever since he took office in early December. Facundo Cruz, a political scientist at the........

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