President Javier Milei's team submitted its property plan in March with big ambitions. By the time the Senate voted, the government had stripped away a lot of those ambitions.
The final version is thinner than the original.
The vote was a win for Milei, but it showed how much ground he had to give up to get there.
By Wednesday, officials had removed the proposal's main element - the loosening of foreign-ownership restrictions.
The original March version had gone further: it would have scrapped those limits entirely. The old system capped foreign ownership at 15% at federal, provincial, and departmental levels. A new version this week raised that cap to 25%. The government cut that clause too after the backlash grew.
Protests were part of the story from the start.
Demonstrators gathered around Congress through Thursday evening, and police on Aug. 6 used water cannons, rubber projectiles, and tear gas to clear the area.
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Pop singers, actors, and other celebrities sided with left-wing politicians and unions. They accused the government of wanting to sell Argentine land.
The fight showed up in the polls too. The LatAm Pulse survey from AtlasIntel for Bloomberg News, released this week, asked Argentines how they see him.
The survey put his approval at 37% in July. That was down four percentage points from June. The same poll found that 62% of Argentines disapproved of him.
The pressure on the government was visible from the start: street demonstrations, celebrity opposition and falling approval numbers all shaped the final debate. The decision to cut the land-ownership clauses was a direct response to that pressure.
Even with the land clauses gone, the bill still has teeth. The remaining provisions would speed up evictions and make it easier for the government to reclaim property after seizing it, a process known as expropriation.
The goal is to encourage investment after decades of state intervention kept property values low. For investors, that was the point of the bill.
Some government officials see the property bill as a test run for a bigger political change: an electoral overhaul that would end or suspend primaries, the open votes parties use to pick candidates, before the 2027 presidential election.
Investors are watching that reform because it could improve Milei's chances in 2027 and calm the market swings Argentina often sees during long election periods.
Argentina's assets tend to get jumpy as elections approach. A reform that eases that pressure would be a bigger deal than the property bill itself.
Jimena Zúñiga, an Argentina economist, said the political fight is not over. "While Milei retains a solid shot at reelection, his approval rates are far from compelling."
"Even if the manufacturing drag eases somewhat, he's unlikely to enjoy a smooth path to a second term. Lingering uncertainty should continue to weigh on Argentine assets through the vote."
The Senate vote may have been the loudest chapter, not the last. Zúñiga's point matters here: uncertainty tends to follow Argentina's assets right up until the next election.
For your portfolio, a single vote does not end Argentine risk; the political pressure that drove this fight is still there.
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