IMF reaches $20 billion bailout deal with troubled Argentina

The IMF said it has reached a preliminary agreement with Argentina on a $20 billion bailout as President Javier Milei seeking overturn of country's old economy.

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday said it has reached a preliminary agreement with Argentina on a $20 billion bailout, providing a welcome reprieve to President Javier Milei as he seeks to overturn the country’s old economic order.

As a staff-level agreement, the rescue package still requires final approval from the IMF’s executive board. The board will convene in the coming days, the IMF statement said.

The fund’s long-awaited announcement offered a lifeline to President Milei, who has cut inflation and stabilized Argentina’s troubled economy with a free-market austerity agenda. His policies have reversed the reckless borrowing of left-wing populist governments that had brought Argentina infamy for defaulting on its debts. The country has received more IMF bailouts than any other.

It came at a critical moment for South America’s second-biggest economy. Pressure had been mounting on Argentina’s rapidly depleting foreign exchange reserves as the government tightened rules on money-printing and burned through its scarce dollars to prop up the wobbly Argentine peso.

Fears grew that if the government failed to secure an IMF loan, hard-won austerity measures would veer off-track and leave Argentina, once again, unable to service its huge debts or pay its import bills.