US buys Argentine pesos, finalizes $20 billion currency swap

[peppertree]

14. Exactly - PLUS it's illegal in Argentina itself, where such an agreement needs congressional approval

Milei has gotten used to circumventing Congress - and during his "honeymoon" period, they largely let him get away with it.

But because the rabid Chucky doll has done everything imaginable to piss off every single center-right ally his far-right party had, he can now only count on, oh, around 70 of Argentina's 257 House members and 7 of its 72 senators.

The rest are unlikely to back this boondoggle.

Right now, Argentina already has an US$18 billion swap with China - which Milei himself renewed in April.

That was approved by Argentina's Congress at the time (2014 - at the depths of the vulture fund blockade against Argentine credit abroad) - and, moreover, has been flexible enough to help finance Argentina's US$9 billion annual trade deficit with China.

And while Trump's and Milei's clowns have both been very secretive about this swap, it's clearly conditioned on Argentina's using it to cancel the China swap - and replacing it with not only a more costly and less flexible one...but one also subject to Trump's notoriously childish whims (he could recall it in a snap - thus bankrupting Argentina on the spot, since they can't easily come up with US$20 billion).

Cry for Argentina -and a little for Mr and Mrs. U.S. Taxpayer too.