Argentines blow billions abroad, fan peso crisis

Fair value: Milei attends a presentation at a federal complex in Buenos Aires. Each month hundreds of thousands of Argentines are booking shopping sprees abroad that are depleting the hard currency reserves Milei needs to defend the peso. — AFP

BUENOS AIRES: To understand the currency crisis rocking the Argentine economy and threatening to sink the government of President Javier Milei, just cross over the Andes mountains and descend into the Chilean capital of Santiago.

There, you’ll see scenes like the one Carolyn Perez witnessed the other day outside a Courtyard by Marriott hotel.