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The US drew nearly $900mn of its IMF reserves as Argentina received an equivalent amount ahead of a critical debt payment, transactions analysts pinned on Washington’s effort to bolster Javier Milei’s government.
Washington’s “special drawing rights” at the IMF, funds that can be used to pay debt or be exchanged for dollars, euros and other currencies, declined by $870mn last month, according to calculations by the Financial Times.
Argentina’s SDR account rose by the same amount over that period, which came just before Argentina was due to pay $840mn to the IMF on November 1.
The transactions come as Washington has been supporting Argentina with a $20bn currency swap arrangement and a market intervention to steady the peso. The Trump administration’s programme, which began before crucial Argentine elections in October, has drawn criticism in the US for putting taxpayer funds at risk.
American soyabean farmers, who are reeling from a drop in Chinese demand as a result of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, have also objected to propping up another large producer of the crop.
The US Department of the Treasury declined to comment on the SDR transactions. Argentina’s economy ministry did not respond to a request for comment and the country’s central bank declined to comment.
The mechanisms behind the $20bn currency swap deal, which is designed to give Buenos Aires access to dollars, have not been disclosed. Analysts said it was possible that Washington had moved the SDRs to Argentina as part of the arrangement.
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that “we made a line of credit available, a small amount of it was drawn on, and we have made a profit on that”.
Gabriel Caamaño, an economist at Buenos Aires-based consultancy Outlier, estimated from changes in the central bank’s balance sheet that $2.7bn of the currency swap line had been drawn, with a portion being used to make the debt payment with the IMF, though he stressed that Argentine authorities had provided no information on the transactions.
The IMF declined to comment on whether Argentina had made its November 1 repayment.
Opacity surrounding the US arrangement with Argentina has prompted concern among some analysts.
“This is a huge, risky undertaking,” said Mark Sobel, a former US Treasury official who is now the US chair of the OMFIF think-tank. “At the moment, we know very little about it.”
Sobel added that it would be “extremely unusual for the US to sell its SDRs to another country”.
Overall, the US held about 127bn SDRs in October. Its holdings that month slipped by 640.8mn, while Argentina’s holdings rose by 640.8mn, from below 30mn, according to fund data.
The US Treasury is able to turn SDRs into dollars through an exchange with the Federal Reserve. This facility was not used in October, according to Fed data, indicating that the SDRs were not converted to dollars.
Argentina’s foreign exchange reserves remain perilously low, even after the IMF provided $15bn of a new $20bn bailout earlier this year, and are set to come under further strain in the months ahead from repayments on previous fund loans and private sector debt.
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