Argentine President Javier Milei can’t find anyone, or any institution, that wants to lend him money—not New York and London banks and not the International Monetary Fund. This would explain the desperation with which Milei and his Finance Minister Luis Caputo, a former trader with JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank, are frantically searching for a lender, any lender, willing to hand over cash.
Reserves are at an all-time low, and the Central Bank has reportedly burned through $12.5 billion this year to intervene in the markets to control the price of the speculative “financial” dollar to reduce the gap between it and the official rate. Moreover, large producers of soy and corn, whose exports were estimated to bring in $13 billion or more on which the government was counting, are not exporting. International prices are low, but producers also demand that Milei first devalue the peso to a rate more beneficial to them and eliminate export taxes. Producers are only exporting small amounts to cover their expenses but nothing more.
According to La Política Online Aug. 16, Milei and Caputo were considering travel to Riyadh to urge the Saudis to dip into their Sovereign Wealth Fund and lend Argentina money. This would be an unusual move for the Saudis, as 80% of the Fund’s $920 billion is invested inside the country.
