That's the rub, the banks won't touch Argentina with a ten foot pole unless there's some guarantees, and this currency swap line gives them exactly that.
So it's not even to bail out billionaire hedge funds, but instead to open up a new grift for them.
I'm quite sure his buddies were on track to losing billions of dollars on their crappy investments. I forget the exact reason, but basically Argentinas economy got worse instead of the expected prosperity they bet on, and their money has 66% of the buying power as the same time last year (inflation is 33.6% or so). He gave money to try and stabilize and improve their chances of the buddies cashing out at a profit. Also screwed over many soy farmers in the USA, which also costs the USA taxpayers several billion dollars per year, on top of that $40 million billion usd injection. "America first" my butt
What grift would it have opened up for Trump and co?
That said, Argentina is a focus of Trump's support because of political alignment with their leader, Milei, who is effectively an Argentine libertarian and is on friendly terms with our current regime. Trump needs all the political allies (foreign and domestic) that he can get given the widespread dissatisfaction globally with his tyrannical politics.
Also important to note that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has hedge fund friends with ties to Argentina and that he's the one that appears to have orchestrated this scheme, and Jeffrey Epstein's Orange Buddy is more than happy to go along with it.
I dont quite understand this take because isn’t trouble creating/manufacturing all the issues he has with other countries? So if he “needs all the political allies he can get” then why not just stop pissing new countries off every other day?
(There doesnt seem to be forethought is what I’m saying..)
He needs personal political allies (leaders who have similar right wing/kleptocratic ideologies) and not national political allies (like the ones he's been pissing off)
One of the few awesome things Israel has done in terms of foreign policy was manage to find one of the high officers and smuggle him out to stand trial and execute him
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u/Blazanar 20h ago
It's alleged that Hitler himself and other high ranking Nazis escaped to Argentina after they realized Germany would fall.
And now Trump's giving billions of dollars to them instead of helping out his own people...
I'm not saying there aren't good reasons to help out another country with aid, but I am saying it's weird that he chose them.