The informal or “blue” dollar exchange hit a new high of AR$1,050 on Tuesday morning, as leading presidential candidate Javier Milei (La Libertad Avanza, LLA) accused the Finance secretary and politicians in general of seeking electoral gains from the blue dollar run.

The rate eased to AR$1,035 shortly after 1 p.m.

On Monday, Milei advised people with fixed-term deposits in pesos not to renew them if they want to save money, comparing Argentina’s national currency with “excrement”. The parallel dollar skyrocketed in the wake of his comments, and the rout continued into Tuesday.

Finance Secretary Eduardo Setti wrote on X Tuesday morning that “it’s obvious that there are four wise guys illegally operating on people’s saving expectations, creating fear and uncertainty.” Milei answered that “it seems there are operators trying to promote anomalous situations to get political advantage.”

Setti said that financial dollars “are almost 15% under the value of the so-called blue dollar, when, historically, they have always been 4% above it.” He called for judicial intervention to stop those who, in his opinion, run the blue dollar market from “illegally appropriating people’s savings.”

Minutes later, Milei said on X that he finds embarrassing “the spectacle that politicians are carrying out trying to get political advantage from the financial disaster, making up responsibilities.”

“If you want to find those who are responsible for this, look at yourselves in the mirror,” Milei said, blaming the government for the dollar run and calling them shameless. “These are the consequences of defending monetary emission and voting budgets with fiscal deficit.”

On Monday, Economy Minister and presidential candidate Sergio Massa criticized Milei for advising people to stop renewing fixed deposits in pesos, saying he is “irresponsible.”

“When I see candidates who are capable of setting a house on fire for a vote, I get worried,” Massa said during the presentation of a book written by former Argentine ambassador in Brazil Daniel Scioli. “That irresponsibility doesn’t hurt me or the government, it hurts millions of Argentines.”

LLA’s Buenos Aires city mayor Ramiro Marra explicitly blamed the government for the dollar run. “This is all because of those who are in the government,” Marra said after the illegal exchange rate surpassed AR$1,000. “Now more than ever: don’t save in pesos. Take care of your money, you worked hard to earn it.”

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