US buys Argentine pesos, finalizes $20 billion currency swap

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Source: AP

The U.S. directly purchased Argentine pesos on Thursday and finalized a $20 billion currency swap framework with Argentina’s central bank, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a social media post.

“U.S. Treasury is prepared, immediately, to take whatever exceptional measures are warranted to provide stability to markets,” Bessent said, adding that the Treasury Department conducted four days of meetings with Argentinian Finance Minister Luis Caputo in Washington D.C. to come up with the deal.

Bessent has insisted that the Argentina credit swap is not a bailout. Last month, President Donald Trump stopped short of promising Argentina’s President Javier Milei a financial bailout from the Latin American country’s economic turmoil.

Still, U.S. farmers and Democratic lawmakers have criticized the deal as a bailout of a country that has benefited from sales of soybeans to China, to the detriment of U.S. farmers.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-bessent-argentina-milei-currency-swap-7432a188e57264f0e5f6c753ddc40879

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Argentine President Javier Milei regales supporters with a rock performance Monday night in Buenos Aires.

The concert - which was held to promote the far-right president's latest book, and whose US$300,000 financing has not been explained - came hours after Milei concluded negotiations for a US$20 billion U.S. taxpayer-funded swap with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The swap would commit the U.S. Treasury to purchase up to US$20 billion in Argentine pesos - a currency that has lost an average of 26% of its value annually since 2001, and 28% so far this year.

Swap negotiations began after President Donald Trump had declared his “complete and total endorsement for [Milei's] re-election as president” - though Milei is facing midterms.