The neocolonial US debt trap: The US is propping up Argentina's failing libertarian President Javier Milei and his ultra-neoliberal "anarcho-capitalist" experiment with $82 BILLION of debt in ONE YEAR.
https://x.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1983861170193965292
The neocolonial US debt trap:
The US is propping up Argentina's failing libertarian President Javier Milei and his ultra-neoliberal "anarcho-capitalist" experiment with $82 BILLION of debt in ONE YEAR.
In fact, Trump basically bought Milei a victory in the legislative midterm elections with this money. It was a successful US form of election meddling.
This enormous new dollar-denominated debt represents roughly the value of ALL of Argentina’s exports in one year, or a staggering 12% of Argentina’s GDP at market exchange rates (or 5.5% of GDP measured at purchasing power parity, PPP).
This $82 billion in new debt consists of the following:
-$20 billion swap line from the US Treasury,
-$20 billion in private-sector loans facilitated by the Trump administration,
-$12 billion from the US-controlled World Bank,
-$10 billion from the US-controlled Inter-American Development Bank (IDB),
-$20 billion from the US-controlled IMF.
Before Milei took power, Argentina already owed $43 billion to the IMF -- which was more than any other country, by far -- after the first Trump administration ordered the US-controlled IMF to give the country's previous right-wing multimillionaire President Mauricio Macri the biggest IMF loan in history ($57 billion) to try to help him win Argentina's 2019 elections (although that time the US meddling was unsuccessful). The $43 billion that were ultimately disbursed were used by Macri and his cronies to fund the carry trade for rich investors and provide the exit liquidity needed to facilitate capital flight for oligarchs (in violation of the IMF's supposed rules).
It is impossible for Argentina to earn enough foreign currency to pay off this dollar-denominated debt. It is unpayable. Period. It will not be paid. (And it should not be paid; it is politically motivated, odious debt.)
However, this debt taken on by Milei (and Macri) will guarantee that the US-controlled IMF will govern Argentina and control its fiscal policies for the foreseeable future.
The US empire is doing to Argentina what it did to its colony Puerto Rico, with its notorious Financial Oversight and Management Board, known as La Junta, which governs the occupied archipelago without the input of the Puerto Rican people.
What this means is that there can be no real democracy in Argentina; the IMF (read: the US) will run Argentina by and for the wealthy stockholders and bondholders.
This is what Milei's libertarian/ancap project truly represents: rule by Wall Street.
posted by Satish Sharma at
02:00
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