While the US government remains shut down, and while millions of Americans face substantial health care cost increases, the Trump administration is more than happy to help out their ally in Argentina, you know, as any “America first” regime might do.
As Judd Legum reports at Popular Information: UPDATE: Taxpayer bailout of Argentina may grow to $40 billion.
On September 24, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a $20 billion bailout for Argentina. Under that plan, Bessent will swap taxpayer dollars for Argentine pesos. President Trump admitted that the bailout, even if it succeeds, will provide little benefit to Americans. But as Popular Information first revealed, the bailout is critical to the economic fortune of hedge fund billionaire Robert Citrone, a personal friend and former colleague of Bessent, who has invested heavily in Argentine assets.
Meanwhile, via the AP: US ranchers oppose Trump’s plan to import more Argentine beef and experts doubt it will lower prices.
President Donald Trump ’s plan to cut record beef prices by importing more meat from Argentina is running into heated opposition from U.S. ranchers who are enjoying some rare profitable years and skepticism from experts who say the president’s move probably wouldn’t lead to cheaper prices at grocery stores.
To which I say: What? International trade is good now?
See also, Krugman, Argentina and Rural America’s Awakening.
The attempt by Trump and Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, to rush $20 billion to Argentina isn’t a big deal compared with the planned savage cuts to crucial programs. But it’s a graphic demonstration of the administration’s hypocrisy. After all the America First rhetoric, all the insistence that spending must be slashed, suddenly we’re sending lots of money to a foreign nation in which we have no real interest except for the fact that its president is a MAGA favorite. I don’t know how many voters are aware that these moves are in large part an attempt to bail out Bessent’s hedge-fund buddies, but I think the sense of something wrong and corrupt is leaking through.
Furthermore, from farmers’ point of view, Argentina is a rival — a big soybean exporter at a time when Trump’s trade war has locked our own farmers out of China’s market.
