They are chachos, a new emergency tender invented by the left-wing populist governor of La Rioja, a province in the country's northwest that went broke when far-right President Javier Milei slashed federal budget transfers to provinces as part of an unprecedented austerity program.

After entering office last year, far-right President Milei swiftly imposed his fiscal shock therapy, slashing federal budget transfers to provinces. The cuts boiled over into a full-blown crisis in La