Argentine President Javier Milei said that he wanted to eliminate foreign exchange restrictions and export duties during a speech to agricultural leaders on Sunday, although he did not give a precise date.

“No-one is as eager as I am to get out of this scheme that, between export duties and the cepo [exchange restrictions], expropriates 70 percent of the country’s production,” he said at the 136th International Livestock, Agriculture, and Industry Expo organized by the Rural Society.

However, Milei did say he would eliminate the PAIS tax, enforced on most transactions using U.S. dollars, before December 7. He added that the government would eliminate regulations “without pause,” but that it would do so respecting the schedule of its economic program, and ignoring “pressures” to accelerate it.

The agricultural sector has been pressuring the government to lift exchange restrictions and devalue the currency. The Cereal Exporting Centre and the Argentine Chamber of the Oil Industry reported bringing in the same amount of dollars in the first half of 2024 as in the same period of 2023, when the country was suffering from a historic drought that devastated the crop.

In his speech, the president called farmers “heroes” whom politicians had punished with taxes.

“To cultivate the soil is to serve the land. To work the land and tame the wild is nothing other than to make civilization,” he said. He also called environmentalists’ and local communities’ accusations that agricultural activity causes pollution “a myth.”

“Even if it did, it is much less harmful than poverty and hunger,” he added.

Before the President’s speech, the head of the Rural Society, Nicolás Pino, asked the farmers for patience and trust in the new administration.

“We speak from a hopeful but realistic position,” said Pino. “We prefer at this time to appeal to the patience of the men and women of the agricultural sector because we believe it is useful to give the government a space of trust, like the citizenship gave it in the 2023 elections.”