“We never talked to the banks about a bailout, nor about 20 billion. It is just another “operation” with the sole intention of generating confusion,” he posted. Luis Caputo in his personal X account last Friday. On social networks, the Minister of Economy denied that the national government has been seeking a loan of that amount to make the next debt payments due within the established deadlines.
However, on the same social networks, an interview with the economic portfolio official with Esteban Trebucq in his La Nación+ cycle was resurfaced. Before the legislative elections on October 26, the journalist consulted the economist about the possibility of a new loan, to which Caputo confirmed: “We are working on another facility for another 20,000 million.” In the same report, Trebucq inquired if the offer came from a pull of banks, but the official preferred not to offer details.
But, following the favorable results for LLA in the electoral contest at the end of October, the Wall Street Journal reported that a group of US banks—including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup— they would have decided to suspend an alternative financing plan for US$ 20,000 million. That banking package, according to these sources, was conceived as a parallel “bailout,” since part of the deal included cooperation with the United States Treasury to stabilize the exchange rate.
According to what was reported last week, these banks would have pivoted towards a much more modest line in lending. Financial entities would offer a “repo” (repurchase agreement) for US$ 5,000 million, intended to cover debt maturities for next January, when Argentina must face payments of about US$ 4,000 million. Given these reports, Caputo assured that there was never a loan requested from US banks for US$ 20,000 million.
The truth is that the fall in this private financing could aggravate the pressure on the BCRA, which faces the serious problem that its net reserves are negative or very low. This has been warned by analysts, who recall that part of the engineering of the loan with the IMF sought precisely to clean up the balance sheet and allow some relief in exchange restrictions. The Central Bank has sold dollars to sustain local demand, further eroding its liquid assets.
The Milei administration had proclaimed that these funds would serve to strengthen the Central Bank and give respite to the exchange rate regime, but the partial suspension of bank credit and the BCRA’s adjusted reserves call into question the extent to which this project can be carried out in the planned terms. For the moment, the first reaction of the national government is to deny that 20,000 million dollars were requested in the credit request.
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