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WASHINGTON ― A core tenet of Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” political philosophy has been that the U.S. ought to devote its resources to making life better for Americans rather than foreigners abroad.
But on Wednesday, in seeming contradiction to that principle, Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. is in talks to provide what is essentially a bailout for Argentina, including a $20 billion credit swap line, and that it is prepared to buy its dollar debt in support of libertarian President Javier Milei and his government.
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“The Trump Administration is resolute in our support for allies of the United States, and President Trump has given President Milei a rare endorsement of a foreign official, showing his confidence in his government’s economic plans and the geopolitical strategic importance of the relationship between the United States and Argentina,” Bessent said in a post on social media, making it clear the U.S. is willing to shore up Argentina’s economy to bolster Milei’s party’s prospects in an election next month.
Milei has been widely celebrated on the right for his policies of tough economic austerity, even though two years after his election, his promised economic turnaround is nowhere in sight. Earlier this year, the Argentine leader appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., where he gave billionaire Elon Musk a chainsaw as a gift, symbolizing his libertarian agenda and representing the slashing of bureaucracy and shrinking the federal government. Musk at the time was leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which unilaterally shuttered U.S. government agencies and laid off thousands of federal workers.
Both men have since seen their public standing crater. Milei’s political party suffered electoral defeats, and Argentina’s economy contracted, costing the country thousands of jobs and businesses. He’s now counting on Trump to bail him out. Meanwhile, Musk left his job at DOGE amid a falling out with Trump, and he’s now one of the least popular public figures in America.
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Asked Tuesday about the prospect of financial support for Argentina, Trump said the U.S. would offer its aid, but he stopped short of calling it a bailout.
“We’re going to help them. I don’t think they need a bailout,” he told reporters at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
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But critics of the move questioned why his administration is offering a lifeline to Argentina and how that move would help U.S. taxpayers, particularly at a time when U.S. economic growth has slowed.
“At a time when Americans are struggling to afford groceries, rent, credit card bills, and other debt payments…it is deeply troubling that the President intends to use significant emergency funds to inflate the value of a foreign government’s currency and bolster its financial markets,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter to Bessent on Tuesday.
“I understand why President Milei, careening from crisis to crisis and unable to effectively manage the Argentinian economy, wants the American people to finance a bailout,” Warren added. “I do not understand why it is in the interest of the United States to provide one, nor how one would be designed to ensure the best outcomes for the Argentinian people, instead of hedge fund investors.”
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Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) also reacted in a post on social media:
Bessent responded to Warren in a post online, writing that she “played a leading role in driving the discredited left-wing economics of the Biden Administration from behind the scenes and failed to act when presented with a historic opportunity to stabilize Latin America economically and geopolitically during the Obama years.” He also argued that the move to intervene in Argentina hurt hedge funds that targeted its stock market to the benefit of working Americans.
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Warren wasn’t convinced, however.
“Guess ‘America First’ is a joke,” she shot back. “Nowhere in this long essay did you answer my questions about why President Trump is bailing out Argentina’s global investors using American taxpayer dollars.