March 8, 2025 (EIRNS)—Argentine President Javier Milei and his Finance Minister Luis Caputo are reporting that the IMF has already agreed to a new deal with the country, including fresh funds. The March 7 daily La Nación reported on Finance Minister Luis Caputo’s interview with LN+ radio the same day, in which he assured that the IMF’s technical staff has agreed on the amount and other terms, which now only requires the executive board’s approval. La Nación had reported earlier this week that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has already put in a good word at the Fund on Argentina’s behalf and that other countries, including China, are on board.
Yet for now all relevant details remain “confidential,” Caputo said. Why? The government wants to get this deal through quickly, avoiding such irritants as having to get parliamentary approval for any new debt, which is required by a 2022 law. Parliamentary debate would take too long, Caputo complained, warning that the followers of former President Cristina Kirchner in Congress will sabotage any agreement that omits mention of conditions, terms or amounts. Milei is frantic to obtain fresh funds to deal with the dangerously low level of foreign reserves and volatile foreign exchange market, especially looking to the all-important October legislative elections in which he hopes his Freedom Advances (LLA) party will make a good showing.
So Milei and Caputo intend to sidestep the 2022 law and submit an “urgency and necessity” decree, or DNU, lying that any fresh IMF funds are not actually “new” debt, but will go directly to the Treasury to allow it to pay off debt owed to the Central Bank. The total amount of national debt “will not increase,” Milei vows. A DNU goes into effect immediately once presented to Congress, until such time as either the Senate or Chamber of Deputies rejects it. The rejection process is time-consuming which works to the government’s advantage, as the IMF deal could be made official before a rejection vote could materialize.
Caputo told LN+ that this deal is “absolutely different” from other IMF agreements Argentina has signed because Milei’s economic program has achieved “fiscal balance” and has applied austerity measures far more severe than anything the Fund ever demanded. He failed to mention the increased poverty, indigence and unemployment as well as plummeting levels of consumption caused by Milei’s brutal measures.
