One percentage point nearly toppled Kast's entire economic agenda.

The sweeping reform that the Kast administration has spent months negotiating in Congress came within a hair of derailing this week over a single percentage point — and that episode lays bare the fragility of the legislative coalition on which the Executive's economic agenda rests.

Finance Minister Jorge Quiroz introduced an amendment in the early hours of Thursday that would cut the corporate tax rate from 23% to 22%, going beyond what the original bill contemplated and igniting an immediate crisis with the three PPD senators — Ricardo Celis, Pedro Araya and Loreto Carvajal — whose backing was indispensable to sustain the tax-stability agreement. Those lawmakers had agreed not to challenge that clause before the Constitutional Court on the basis of a 1.5% surcharge applied on top of the 23% regime; by shifting the floor, the entire fiscal equation was thrown off. What followed was a seven-hour session in the Senate Finance Committee, accusations of "bad faith" from the opposition, and the spectacle of Quiroz withdrawing his own amendments at midday to preserve an agreement that, by the end of the session, remained formally in limbo after Senator Araya confirmed he was stepping away from the understanding.

The minister insisted he had acted in good faith and that the confusion stemmed from prior public statements in which he had floated 22% as a target — remarks that were never part of the negotiated text. The committee chair, Senator Javier Macaya (UDI), tried to lower the temperature by highlighting the Executive's willingness to compromise, though he made no secret of his preference for an even lower corporate rate — he mentioned 20% as a desirable horizon. Senator Paulina Vodanovic, of the Socialist Party, rejected both the rate cut and full tax reintegration, widening the government's exposure on its left flank. The net result is that the bill moves forward with a 23% corporate rate, an employment credit that, in its reformulated version, is narrowly focused on exporters of knowledge-based services, and a total fiscal cost that fell from US$1.8 billion to US$1.2 billion — a 32% reduction from the original design.

CPC president Susana Jiménez welcomed the changes made to the reconstruction bill, arguing they had trimmed back the most contested instruments without altering the central objective of reigniting growth. That upbeat reading from the business community, however, contrasts sharply with the analysis of Quiroz himself — and with that of his own head of state. The tension between the two deserves attention: while the minister categorically ruled out a technical recession and labeled June an "inflection point" — leaning on VAT collection data and the anticipated effects of the reconstruction law — President Kast has used the language of "employment emergency" to describe a labor market that has now accumulated more than 40 months with unemployment above 8%. That narrative divergence between La Moneda and the Finance Ministry is not a minor detail: it sends conflicting signals to a market already digesting five consecutive months of declines in the seasonally adjusted monthly indicator. The question that will determine the direction of Chile's economy in the coming months is whether the June print, due in the next few weeks, confirms or refutes Quiroz's optimism.

In a direct response to that pressure, the government this week activated a $50 billion package earmarked for hiring subsidies, with 20,000 new slots available through Sence starting July 15. The initiative, unveiled at the fourth session of the Interministerial Employment Roundtable, includes regional co-financing through the regional governments and additional resources from Sercotec. Independent economists, such as María José Abud of Horizontal, warn that growth alone will not solve the problem: since the pandemic, employment has decoupled from GDP as a result of the shortened workweek, higher minimum wage and rising pension contributions — a combination that structurally raises the cost of hiring and that no temporary subsidy can offset on its own.

In markets, the week closed on a relatively calm note. The IPSA rose 0.28% to 11,056 points, holding above the psychological 11,000 threshold. The dollar pulled back against the peso on a day of global stabilization, while Comex reference copper advanced 0.2% to US$6.27 per pound — a level that remains historically elevated and that makes the debate over Codelco's capacity to capture that rent all the more pressing. Oil closed slightly lower. Lithium, banks and shopping malls are where local analysts see the market placing its bets for the third quarter.

In mining, the week brought two significant developments. BHP is exploring the divestiture of the Puerto Coloso desalination plant — which supplies the Escondida mine — in a transaction that adds to the previously announced sale of its power lines in Chile; taken together, these assets could be worth up to US$2 billion. The move is consistent with the global trend of major miners separating non-extractive infrastructure from their balance sheets. In parallel, Brandon Craig, who took over as CEO of BHP on July 1 replacing Canadian Mike Henry, has a distinctive tie to Chile: he is the first leader in the company's history with prior work experience in the country, having run operations at Escondida, Spence and Cerro Colorado. That résumé suggests Chile will remain a strategic priority for the Australian miner in the near term. On the Codelco front, Jorge Gómez begins his tenure as executive chairman this Monday, arriving with at least five trusted lieutenants and facing the challenge of repositioning a role that was overshadowed by the board during the prior administration.

In the broader corporate arena, Cencosud and Latam Airlines are moving ahead with share buyback programs — a signal that their own management teams view their stock as undervalued — while Enel Americas will put a repurchase of up to 5% of its capital to a shareholder vote on July 23. Spanish firm Dominion, listed on the Madrid stock exchange, declared Chile a priority expansion market, with a focus on prison concessions, hospitals and data centers. And in enterprise software, the sale of Kame ERP to Colombian group Siigo — backed by private equity fund Accel-KKR — with a US$6 million injection, illustrates the international appetite for the market of tech solutions for Chilean SMEs.

What warrants close monitoring in the weeks ahead is manifold but convergent: the June activity print, which will determine whether