U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s visit to Argentina yesterday, on the occasion of the IMF having just approved a four-year, $20 billion Extended Fund Facility loan, looked like a great lovefest. President Javier Milei and his Finance Minister Luis Caputo were euphoric at having secured the IMF loan, eliminated exchange controls, and obtained an additional $12 billion from the World Bank and $10 billion from the Inter-American Development Bank. Bessent, however, did not offer an additional credit line from the U.S. Treasury, much to Milei’s disappointment, and in later remarks to https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2025-04-14/bessent-on-trade-talks-powell-future-argentina-dollar-video">Bloomberg-TV he did threaten Milei that he’d better pay off the $18 billion currency swap his central bank has with the People’s Bank of China and rid his country of “rapacious” Chinese influence. The Chinese Embassy in Buenos Aires responded immediately and harshly (see separate slug).
In an appearance at the Casa Rosada presidential palace, portrayed as a joint declaration, Bessent offered President Donald Trump’s support for Milei’s “bold” economic program—based on the vicious Austrian School of Economics associated with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet—and his “historic” commitment to “bringing Argentina back from the precipice.” Milei, he said, courageously recognized that “the state is not the solution, but the problem” and “confronted the Establishment,” reprivatized the economy, and “broke with the past.”
