Javier Milei’s government announced Wednesday the signing of an agreement with the United States to strengthen “its surveillance and control capabilities in the South Atlantic,” according to an official statement. The deal runs for five years and means, on one hand, a U.S. contribution of technology to modernize the South American country’s naval equipment and, on the other, authorization for forces from U.S. Southern Command to take part in patrolling Argentina’s southern sea.

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Enormous banners erected across Plaza de Mayo and the surrounding avenues in downtown Buenos Aires repeated the same slogan: “Milei, comply with the law.” Hundreds of thousands of people chanted it this Tuesday as they marched to demand that Argentina’s hardline government halt its cuts to public universities and release the funds approved by Congress. “The funding of the national university system is in a critical state, and the main cause is that the national government is failing to comply with the basic democratic and constitutional rule: to uphold the university funding law, which establishes a minimum level of resources that ensures the normal functioning of the system,” denounced academic authorities, faculty members and students in a joint statement read at the main protest event. The administration of Javier Milei labeled the federal university march an “opposition act” and reiterated that it will not release the requested funds.

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On Avenida Córdoba, one of Buenos Aires’ busiest avenues, one lane remains closed. With desks set up on the asphalt, about 50 economics students listen to a professor who, while sketching on a plastic whiteboard, tries to rise above the noise of cars and buses. The same scene was repeated this Monday on different streets and squares in the Argentine capital, as well as in other cities across the country.

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Corruption cases continue to plague Javier Milei’s government. Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni reappeared before the local press on Monday and denied illicit enrichment, but just minutes after his statement, new developments emerged in the legal case investigating him: a supplier testified that Adorni paid him $245,000 in cash without an invoice for lavish renovations on one of the properties he has acquired since becoming a public official. Meanwhile, a new scandal has reached the courts regarding millions of dollars in irregular expenses detected at Nucleoeléctrica Argentina, the company that operates Argentina’s nuclear power plants. These expenditures include payments for five-star hotels, beach services, hair salons, bars, duty-free shops, and cash withdrawals.

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