President milei, trying to get land sold to foreigners
Executive summary
President Javier Milei moved quickly to remove Argentina’s 2011 law limiting foreign purchases of rural land—issuing a decree that aimed to repeal the Ley de Tierras and eliminate caps on foreign hectares [1] [2] [3]—but judges have already suspended parts of that measure and litigation has left the repeal’s implementation contested and, in practice, paused [4] [5] [6].
1. Milei’s push: a deregulatory megadecree to open land markets
Upon taking office the Milei administration used a Decree of Necessity and Urgency as part of a broad “mega-decree” to assert that property contracting should face no nationality-based restrictions and explicitly sought to remove the 2011 Rural Land Law’s limits on foreign ownership—language and administrative timing appear across multiple government and legal analyses of the DNU issued in December 2023 [3] [2] [7].
2. Legal pushback and the pause button from the judiciary
The administration’s effort has not gone unchallenged: federal Judge Ernesto Kreplak issued injunctions suspending the article that abolished Law 26.737, and subsequent provincial court rulings have kept the law effectively in force while cases proceed—meaning the legal repeal is frozen pending higher-court resolution and a web of protective writs and appeals is underway [4] [5] [6].
3. What would change if repeal holds: investment, markets, and local variation
If the repeal stands, proponents inside business and real estate circles expect increased foreign demand for rural hectares, arguing that the 2011 law depressed capital inflows and land values compared with other countries; the administration’s framing is explicitly pro‑market and oriented to attract foreign direct investment under liberalized rules [7] [2] [8]. Observers note, however, that urban property was already unrestricted and that the impact will vary by province because the original law’s application and provinces’ own rules created a patchwork of exposure to foreign buyers [6] [1].
4. Critics’ case: sovereignty, environment, and Indigenous rights
Opponents argue the law defended sovereignty, limited concentration of land in non‑national hands, and protected vulnerable ecosystems and Indigenous territories; civil society, veterans’ groups and Indigenous organizations have mounted legal and political resistance, saying the rollback risks dispossession, extractive projects, and weakened environmental and Indigenous protections already targeted by other Milei measures [9] [10] [11] [5]. Reporting on Patagonia in particular frames the reforms alongside other incentives and deregulatory steps—such as RIGI—that critics say create conditions for large foreign projects that could intensify land conflicts [11].
5. Politics and hidden incentives: whose interests are served?
The push to lift limits dovetails with Milei’s wider economic strategy of rapid deregulation, tax changes and courting foreign capital, and analysts flag that powerful private and international investors stand to profit from expanded access to Argentina’s rural land; at the same time, the administration has portrayed repeal as correcting distortions and promoting growth, which aligns with the political project of shrinking state controls and signaling friendliness to global capital [2] [3] [12].
6. Where things stand now and what to watch next
As of the latest reporting, the decree’s articles repealing the land law have been subject to injunctions and are tied up in judicial review, meaning the 2011 protections remain in force until higher courts rule or Congress acts, and international and diplomatic observers—including U.S. reporting—have noted the revocation while also documenting broader policy shifts that affect investment conditions [4] [5] [13]. The real-world outcomes will depend on court rulings, whether Congress affirms or rejects the DNU, provincial responses, and whether accompanying measures (tax breaks, investment incentives) attract the scale of foreign capital proponents promise [2] [11].