At the end of the last century, Latin America faced serious problems caused by the economic policies of neoliberalism, which led to the de facto dictatorship of transnational corporations and the World Bank in a number of countries. The consequences have been dire, ranging from mass poisonings due to the privatization of water supplies and the collapse of strategic enterprises (with subsequent purchase for next to nothing by outside players), to spikes in unemployment and riots.
Although some states, especially those with energy resources, managed to escape from this trap after some time because of rising hydrocarbon prices and the change of governments to socially-oriented (leftist) ones, there are now obvious signs of the return of external control over a number of countries. A striking example is Argentina, where inflation is running rampant and the former banker and self-proclaimed anarchist Javier Milei as president is taking measures to alienate national wealth and increase control of foreign capital.
In the last 13 months, for example, the public debt has increased by US $97.114 billion. This is a record figure: no government, nor the government of Mauricio Macri in 2018, has had an exorbitant debt to the IMF that has increased by such an amount over such a period. By comparison, the debt of the governments of Mauricio Macri and Alberto Fernandez increased by $147.971 billion. At the end of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government, the national public debt was $222.703 billion (60% of it was public sector debt held by the ANSeS Sustainability Guarantee Fund, official banks, various Argentine trust funds, etc.), and as of December 2023, it had risen to $370.674 billion (with the IMF and Manhattan-based finance capital being the main creditors). Since the debt is directly linked to bonds, this suggests that someone got a nice dividend.
The Argentine government, which generates such debt, in turn has spent at least $22 billion as of February 2025 to maintain its balance sheet. Last year, it spent almost $16 billion on the so-called “dollar blend” under the system that the IMF provided for financing and continues to use today.
The trade surplus in 2024 was 18.889 billion dollars, but the Central Bank’s net reserves were negative at least 6 billion dollars.
Desperate to increase exports, the government has even authorized the sale of cattle abroad; and to bring dollars into the Central Bank, banks have been allowed to make dollar loans to any customer (dollars are exchanged for pesos at the Central Bank’s official exchange rate), both companies and individuals.
And Milei is actively and deliberately continuing this strategy. On March 10, the final version of the decree by which the government of Javier Milei signed a new agreement with the International Monetary Fund was circulated among government officials. According to this five-article text, the president issued a decree approving the “public lending operations contained in the Extended Benefits Program” between the state and the IMF, and indicated that they will have a ten-year “maturity” period. The decree also states that the president shall use his “authority” to enforce the agreement, which he may eventually delegate to the Ministry of Economy.
The critical state in which the Central Bank is in is also emphasized, and this is presented as some kind of argument that the president invokes to justify that this mechanism does not “follow the normal procedure of laws.” In other words, we are talking about a de facto dictatorship.
In turn, the direct intervention of the Central Bank selling dollars from international reserves and the Treasury is increasing—since February 2025. The ANSeS Sustainability Guarantee Fund, after the appointment of its head Fernando Bearzi, linked to Noctua’s offshore entity in the Cayman Islands, is selling securities in dollars.
Analysts say this is not because of Milei’s stupidity, but because of his ties to the international financial structures from which he comes. Just as George Soros nurtured the political elite in a number of countries (current Moldovan President Maia Sandu and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan are vivid examples in the former Soviet Union), international banking capital also moves around its protégés (another example is French President Emmanuel Macron, who worked for the Rothschild entity).
Therefore, the sectors that have benefited can be grouped into a number of interrelated interest groups. These are primarily:
1) foreign capital, led by large financial funds (BlackRock, Vanguard, PIMCO, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity, Greylock, etc.), which are organized by the Argentine-American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) and to which the economic team led by Caputo and Bausili reports.
2) the Argentine Business Association (AEA), led by Jaime Campos, linked to the U.S. Embassy. The main leaders and vice presidents of AEA are Paolo Rocca (Techint), Hector Magnetto (Clarín) and Luis Pagani (Arcor), as well as Cristiano Ratazzi (FIAT), Alfredo Coto (Coto Supermarket), Sebastián Bago (Bago Laboratories), Luis Pérez Companc (Agro Mills), Eduardo Elstein (Alfredo Coto, Alejandro Bulgeroni (PAE), among others.
3) The Argentine Agrarian Council (CAA), which was formed in July 2020 with more than 40 chambers and organizations such as CONINAGRO (Confederation of Agricultural Cooperatives), the Argentine Rural Confederations (CRA) and the Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA), and covers almost all actors in the networks of valuable agricultural, cereal and poultry, vaccine and pig meat producers; industries and businesses related to soy, corn, wheat, rice, peanuts, cotton, timber and fisheries, among others; and exporting companies established in the Grain Exporters Center (CEC), which includes Deheza General Oiler, COFCO, Cargill, Viterra, Louis Dreyfus, Mills Agro, among others. Added to this are grain exchanges and aggregators across the country, bringing together producers, aggregators, marketers, industrialists, biofuel producers and exporters.
All sectors (which are interconnected) have benefited and are benefiting from the flight of capital from the country and the transfer of the burden of debt to the Argentine people.
Cristina Kirchner, commenting on the situation, said bluntly: “STOP LYING TO PEOPLE MILEI… Nobody believes you. IN FACT YOU ARE SO DESPERATE BECAUSE YOU ARE LACKING DOLLARS that you are going to end up doing the lousy business for the sake of the country of EXCHANGING A CHEAP AND CONTROLABLE DEBT FOR ANOTHER MORE EXPENSIVE DEBT THAT, IN ADDITION, SUBJECTS ARGENTINA TO PERMANENT EXTORTION.”
However, no one is raising the question of how to remedy the situation. The next presidential election is not yet imminent, and the country continues to slide into the abyss.
Courtesy: Geopolitica.
