Argentina used multilateral funds to repay US$2.5 billion US swap

Argentina secured financing from an unnamed multilateral institution to repay US$2.5 billion to the US Treasury from a currency swap agreement, according to an official from the nation’s Central Bank.

The financing was not announced publicly by either the Central Bank or the multilateral lender, according to the official, who declined to specify the lender but did say it wasn’t the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Argentina currently has a US$20-billion IMF loan program. 

Last Friday, Argentina fully repaid the US$2.5 billion it obtained from a US$20-billion swap line with the Trump administration while also making key payments to bondholders for another US$4.3 billion. The government made the bond payments last week using its own reserves combined with a US$3-billion loan known as a repurchase agreement from six international banks.

“Our nation has been fully repaid while making tens of millions in USD profit for the American taxpayer,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote in a Friday post on X. He added that Argentina has successfully tapped financial markets while also making “encouraging changes to its monetary and exchange rate policy framework.”

Bessent offered the extraordinary US support as Argentina’s peso suffered extreme volatility ahead of a crunch midterm vote in October. Traders were betting that President Javier Milei would lose to his leftist opponents, but Milei’s libertarian party prevailed, and the market outlook has since swung back in his favour.

The US Treasury and Argentine officials have provided little information about the swap line or its conditions.