A strange consensus has formed in Argentina during the last days: The de facto Minister of the Economy is the North American Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent.. Not only is he the main driver of the financial aid of 20,000 million dollars to support a weak Javier Miley. His obsession with the South American country is reflected in systematic interventions in X that fail to calm the markets. According to the loquacious Bessent, “the efforts” of the Argentine president “to reverse the decades of decline of his country, derived from the radical leftism of Peronism, are crucial.” Praise does not lead to positive results. “Argentina now has the opportunity to achieve economic freedom, and our stabilization agreement is a bridge to a better economic future for Argentina, not a bailout,” he said this Wednesday. However, words have so far failed to contain the rise in the price of the dollar and distort opinion polls that predict an adverse electoral result for the Government. Bessent speaks and the markets disobey him. The portal Online Politics He referred ironically to “Financial Vietnam” of the man who, when operating side by side with George Soros collapsed the price of the pound sterling on the so-called “Black Wednesday” of 1992.
Washington’s assistance to Buenos Aires has caused short circuits internally in the United States. Farmers and ranchers, democrats and even the media have complained, where the joke has also surfaced. The popular program Saturday Night Live has compared Milei to Austin Powers, the grotesque film character played by Mike Myers. Additionally, he predicted that Trump officials “will flee to Argentina.” The Republican magnate only strengthened the sarcastic tendency of some commentators when, to justify his status as a firefighter for the far-right, he said about Argentines: “They are dying. OK? “They are dying”. Argentina “is fighting for its life. Do you understand what that means? They have no money, they have nothing, they are fighting very hard to survive. If I can help them survive in a free world… I like the president… I think he is trying to do the best he can.” Days ago, the tycoon himself made the aid conditional on his South American emulator winning at the polls on October 26.
Trump’s diagnosis only worsened Milei’s situation to the point that he has been practically withdrawn from the election campaign. Over rained, wet. Bessent and his virtual appearances. “We do not want another failed state in Latin America, and a strong and stable Argentina as a good neighbor is explicitly in the strategic interest of the United States.”
The price of the intervention
The Peronists have launched the slogan “homes the Bessent”. Last Monday, 36 Democratic congressmen increased pressure on the Treasury secretary with new demands so that suspend controversial assistance. They also claimed “additional information“about the “costs” and “risks” of the so-called Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF, for its acronym in English) destined for Argentina. Finally, they made him aware of the suspicions that it has “political purposes“.
Carlos Pagni, a newspaper columnist The Nation which is usually widely read among politicians and businessmen, broke down Bessent’s unusual words from last week (“I am in charge of the Argentine Government”) and described them as a “intervention“which has substantial importance for the White House because Trump cannot”allow a failure from someone so identified with him”. Bessent intends to pull the strings of a country that, like the United States, cannot agree on the approval of its budget. In this way, the Secretary of the Treasury “is involved” in two crises and “he spends his time tweeting about the dollar market in Buenos Aires.” This happens, Pagni remarks, “as if it were not a rarity.” The analyst also allows himself sharp irony. A country like Argentina that has devoured 40 Ministers of Economy during the last decades “The US official is already cornering him, who sells dollars to buy pesos“. Milei, he recalled, “came to dollarize Argentina and is pesifying the United States.”
Krugman’s opinion
Bessent’s maneuvers did not go unnoticed by Paul Krugman. According to the Nobel Prize, the United States is putting money into an economic program that is not going to work.” It is about “a lifeline for the failed bets of Bessent’s allies”he warned in an article published on his website, alluding to those who speculated in the Argentine market.
In his opinion, Trump’s ads “have made the situation worse.” Krugman described this support as “crass” – crude – because the South American country strictly speaking lacks “strategic value for the US”, represents less than 0.5% of North American exports, and, furthermore, drags a history of corruption, political instability, fiscal mismanagement, and nine suspensions of foreign debt paymentsthree of them since 2001. Just like 24 years ago, the rulers of that time insisted on maintaining an artificial parity between the Argentine peso and the dollar. Milei has dedicated its efforts to maintaining a low price of the currency as a tool to control inflation. “It is a useless and proven ineffective method, destined to fail.which leads to capital flight, skyrocketing interest rates and eventual currency devaluation, putting American taxpayer money at risk,” Krugman said. Bessent has nevertheless set out to manage that failure personally.
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