Why Argentina Needs Bailout After Bailout After Bailout

Odd Lots

Bloomberg

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4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Argentina is getting bailed out again, with $40 billion of help from the Trump administration. Of course, this is a recurring phenomenon for Argentina, and this time it's happening under the free market-oriented Javier Milei, who has slashed spending to bring down inflation. So why is it in trouble again? And why is this such a recurring feature of the Argentine economy? In this episode, we speak with Greg Makoff, the author of Default: The Landmark Court Battle over Argentina's $100 Billion Debt Restructuring. In this conversation, Greg explains the domestic political context for why Argentina hasn't been able to establish a sustainable economic footing. We discuss the legacy of Peronism, Milei's efforts to sharply change course, and the challenge of seeing any economic reform project through to completion, given the pain required get into fiscal balance.

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0:32.5	Bloomberg Audio Studios,
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0:48.5	Music Radio Studios. Podcasts Radio News. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Thoughts podcast.
0:51.8	I'm Tracy Alloway.
0:52.9	And I'm Joe Wisenthal.
1:12.0	Joe, we are in Washington, D.C. Do you know who else is in our nation's capital? Lots of people. Lots of people are in our nation's capital right now. I could go on and on. There's a lot of people live there permanently, but also a lot of people visiting this week, like we are. True. Okay. So one person in particular is visiting who is of note for this particular podcast, and that is Haviate Millay. He is the president of Argentina.
1:17.6	And he's meeting with Trump today. They're supposed to finalize like the $20 billion swap that
1:24.3	Argentina just got from the U.S. Treasury. Basically, Argentina is getting their like
1:29.6	umteenth bailout. I tried to count all of them, but then I stopped because I was like, I have a
1:34.5	life. But normally a lot of those bailouts come from the IMF. This one's coming from the Treasury,
1:40.5	so it's fairly unusual. It also comes with a lot fewer terms than some other deals.
1:46.1	But this is a good time to talk about Argentina and why it seems to constantly be in financial
1:51.7	trouble and either defaulting or on the verge of a default.
1:54.9	You know I'm like traumatized by Argentina topics, right?
1:58.2	Wait, why?
1:58.8	Well, I've probably said it once or twice before on the podcast, but, you know, the first time I applied for a job in New York City was with Brad Setser. Oh, that's right. And he was like, and in the middle of the interview, he was like, how would you characterize, this is 2006, maybe. He's like, how would you characterize the struggles of Argentina? And I just totally blanked. I literally didn't get a word out,
	...

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