Argentina's libertarian government has emerged from recent midterm elections with renewed political momentum, strengthening President Javier Milei's hand as he pushes ahead with sweeping economic reforms. 

Milei's reforms seem aimed largely at restoring stability and attracting long-term foreign investment, with mining firmly in focus. 

The midterms delivered Milei stronger representation in Congress than many had expected, easing concerns that provincial losses, especially in Buenos Aires, would weaken his position.

For investors in the country, the outcome seems to have reinforced continuity after two years of politically difficult reforms focused on cutting Argentina's chronic fiscal deficit and taming inflation.

Speaking to Mining Magazine, Francisco Balduzzi, a partner at Womble Bond Dickinson who advises cross-border energy and mining transactions across Latin America, said the political backdrop matters mainly because it has improved the government's ability to deliver legal stability – the factor most likely to determine whether multi-billion-dollar copper and lithium projects move from plans to construction.

Putting money first 

"Milei clearly has done something that none of the previous presidents in Argentina have done in the last few years, that is to reduce the fiscal deficit of Argentina," Balduzzi said. "He ran originally on the basis that it was going to be tough for the people, and people voted him anyway."

Argentina's mining provinces have long touted world-class geology, but investment has lagged peers such as Chile and Peru amid currency controls, unpredictable tax policy and litigation risk.

Balduzzi said Milei's midterm election performance strengthens the government's position to keep its programme intact and negotiate further reforms to permitting, which could matter as mining companies commit capital over decades.

"That midterm election provides Milei with enough votes in Congress to protect his veto," he said, adding that it could also help the government negotiate new legislation such as tax and labour reforms.

New investment regime 

For miners, however, the central change is the Large Investment Incentive Regime known as RIGI, designed to "bulletproof" projects above £160 million (US$200 million).

Balduzzi described it as a 30-year framework intended to stabilise tax and foreign exchange rules, while offering access to international dispute resolution.

"Once you avail of the regime, that regime will apply to the project for the next 30 years," he said. "So it provides you pretty much a 30-year regulatory stability."

He said the regime's appeal is practical rather than ideological. "It gives you tax stability, foreign exchange stability," he said, pointing to a recurring constraint under prior governments wherein miners could earn profits, but often struggled to distribute dividends abroad because the central bank lacked US dollars.

"The central bank would not authorise the cashing out, distributing dividends outside Argentina," Balduzzi said. "The main reason for that was the central bank didn't have enough dollars."

Easier operating environment 

RIGI, he said, seeks to address that by creating a clearer framework for capital flows. It also reduces headline tax rates, including income tax to 25% from 35%. Dividend taxes are also reduced under the regime after seven years, he said, and it offers an arbitration route that sits outside Argentina's domestic courts.

"It provides the [miners] also with a dispute resolution regime that enables them to avail from international arbitration," Balduzzi said. 

Balduzzi said the framework echoes some of the investor protections Argentina used in the 1990s, but aims to incorporate hard lessons from past boom-and-bust cycles that left some institutions wary of returning.

"These are similar incentives to the ones you would find in the 90s in Argentina, but also incorporating some of the lessons learned during those periods," he said. "Here is not a bilateral investment treaty offering the international arbitration, but it's the investment regime directly offering you the international arbitration."

In his view, RIGI's structure is also politically significant for miners because provinces can adhere to the regime, aligning federal incentives with provincial licensing power in a country where natural resources are governed locally.

"It allows the Argentinian provinces to adhere to the regime, and then basically the investors to come with the particular investment and try to get qualified under the regime," he said.

Projects in the pipeline 

Several projects have already been approved, including lithium developments and a flagship copper play. Balduzzi cited Los Azules, a major copper project in San Juan, as an example of the regime's early traction.

"One of them is the big project called Los Azules," he said, describing approval in "a pretty record timeframe".

Balduzzi also mentioned lithium projects at Hombre Muerto and Rincon as having moved through the process.

While RIGI is designed to accelerate decisions, Balduzzi said mining investment does not follow the same logic as most sectors because companies are drawn first by resource potential, and only then by politics.

"Mining is a different animal," he said. "Mining companies follow the geology."

Argentina "has lithium, Argentina has copper, but also gold," he said, arguing the country has not yet matched Andean neighbours in turning those resources into sustained output. "It has not been as much here as Chile or Peru, which are the very mature markets in Latin America."

He framed the current moment as a convergence: "You have the geology, you have the resource in Argentina, and now you're having the new regime, the investment regime."

Environmental conflict 

The next constraint for large copper projects is not incentives but permitting and environmental conflict, particularly around Argentina's glacier protection law.

Milei's government has discussed reforms aimed at clarifying what constitutes protected glacial and periglacial areas, attracting wide spread critique from opposition parties and environmental groups. 

Speaking with Buenos Aires Times, environmental lawyer and activist Enrique Viale described the reform as "a liberalisation of our territory" that would allow "destruction, agro-business and real-estate speculation."

"It's extremely serious because an environmental regression is proposed which would affect the backbone of environmental protection laws in Argentina," he said. 

However, others have described the law as "disastrous" to the country's economic development. Speaking to Radio Rivadavia, Senator Francisco Paoltroni of the La Libertad Avanza party said the law has precisely hindered mining development throughout Argentina.

Balduzzi agreed, commenting that the present law is "pretty broad" and has created uncertainty that can be weaponised through legal challenges.

"There's a glacial regulation which is pretty broad and doesn't really draw the line clearly," he said. "So it has caused activists or some provincial governments, depending on the province, to push back on certain projects."

He said the main goal of reform is clearer definitions. "What they want to do with the glaciers law reform is really to give more clarity to the investors," Balduzzi said. "Today there's not a clear [line], there's a blurry line."

In his view, the politics of glacier reform differs from national debates about environmental policy because provincial governments have strong incentives to support projects that can deliver jobs, infrastructure and tax receipts.

"The provincial governments really want the mining business, because that brings a lot of development and growth to their own provinces," he said.

Balduzzi argued that opposition is often driven by groups far from mine sites, while local communities tend to support responsible projects.

"Many times the activists that are fighting [...] are not even people who live in the provinces where the mining projects are being developed," he said. "Most of the people in the communities are usually very supportive, because mining projects bring a lot of development to those areas."

ESG considerations 

He also pushed back against the notion that mining lags other industries on ESG. "Mining has a lot of bad press," he said, but added that industry practice has long centred on community impacts. "When you talk about ESG, [it] is more boots on the ground."

"Doing mining responsibly is also not [just] respecting the environmental laws," he said. "It's really social and [includes the] development of the communities that are around the mine."

Still, Balduzzi acknowledged investor sentiment remains uneven after repeated cycles of optimism and disappointment.

He described three "buckets" of investors: those already comfortable with frontier risk; those newly interested due to US support for Milei; and sceptics, particularly in finance, who want to see whether the political shift endures.

"Some of these investors feel they were burned with Argentina," he said. "They went there in the 90s, they lost. They came back with a Macri government in 2016, and then when Macri lost, they lost again."

Those investors, he said, want proof that reforms are not temporary. "They say they want to wait until the next election cycle," he said, though he added views could shift quickly if Milei secures additional reforms that demonstrate political durability.

If glacier reform advances, Balduzzi said it could be read as a leading indicator for the broader mining pipeline.

"If that is close to be approved, that would be a great signal, particularly [for] the mining industry," he said. "It will show that Milei has the ability to negotiate with minorities and keep the country stable."

For now, his assessment of the mood in the mining economy is cautious but positive. "In Argentina, there's a lot of hope," Balduzzi said. "There's good momentum, and Milei needs to take advantage of that."