IMF frees $7.5 billion for Argentina, lowers bar for economy targets
The executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday approved the disbursement of $7.5 billion for Argentina after completing the fifth and sixth reviews of their $44 billion program, the IMF said.
Various economic targets included in the program were eased, as in the fourth review, and waivers for non-observance were also in place, the IMF said.
Total disbursements under the arrangement are now about $36 billion, the fund said.
IMF staff and Argentina had reached an agreement late in July, which had eased economic targets partly because a devastating drought has created a challenging environment for the grains exporter - costing it an estimated $20 billion in export income.
Most of the cash is being used to pay back the fund for the record, $44 billion bailout program - which the IMF granted in 2018 to right-wing former President Mauricio Macri, reportedly at the behest of then-U.S. President Donald Trump.
At: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentina-secures-75-bln-disbursement-imf-board-oks-reviews-govt-2023-08-23/
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and Argentine Economy Minister Sergio Massa following today's meeting at the Fund's headquarters.
Capping weeks of negotiations, the IMF released a $7.5-billion advance to the hard currency-strapped nation - of which $3.4 billion will be available to fend off attempts to destabilize Argentina's fragile finances by the country's increasingly radicalized right-wing opposition ahead of elections this October.
A surprisingly strong showing by far-right figure Javier Milei in first-round elections on August 13th sent parallel currency markets in Beunos Aires reeling - and today's advance may help stem any future such maneuvers.
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a current Presidential candidate in Argentina, then reading this paragraph,
reminded me that Trump was trying to push daughter Ivanka into the IMF to replace Christine LeGarde, by 2019, when he dragged Ivanka along to the G-20 summit meeting in Osaka, where the media grabbed these images of Ivanka trying to butt into a conversation Christina LeGarde was having with Macron, and Trudeau.
They were simply typical Trump photos at the time, but just now it made even more sense, after seeing your photo of Minister Massa speaking with Kristalina Georgieva.
I realized Trump, without a doubt, directed Ivanka to go butt into that conversation and work it, as part of his plan to shove his kid into the IMF ASAP! You noted, back then, that she went over like a lead balloon! The French Government released those photos!
It makes it even clearer tonight that Trump was already starting to flex his Presidential muscle with the IMF and that there probably would have been no end to his super-filthy schemes for situations like Macri's, assisting them in creating impossible problems for would-be successive progressive Presidents, which could lead to nearly permanent fascist control of everything on the planet!
That vicious plan could make fascists unstoppable once it got up enough steam.
We won't know if it has worked in Argentina for Macri and other dictatorship supporters until after this coming election. Wow.
Surely hoping this agreement made with Massa, and President Alberto Fernández, and IMF's Georgieva can bring the necessary substance to carry the positive and progressive work restoring the government back to health, back to where it was before the fascists got their destructive takeover underway.
Hoping this is the step needed, peppertree. It sounds so helpful.
That $45 billion bailout Lagarde handed Macri, with zero oversight (and at Trump's behest), has to go down as the biggest mistake - and scandal - in IMF history.
It's the very thing Ivanka would've done, had she been at the saddle.
That said, Georgieva is painfully aware of the terrible situation she inherited - and that if that toupéed pig Milei wins, there go the IMF's hopes of at least keeping the loan on the performing side of its ledger (to say nothing of being repaid anytime in the near future).
It really is the biggest Trump scandal nobody's heard of.
Such is the world.
Thanks as always Judi, and have a great and pleasant weekend. Not too hot, I hope. 