Former Chilean minister and current director of the Western Hemisphere Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Rodrigo Valdés continues to face pressure from the Argentine government to leave the bilateral negotiations that both bodies are maintaining regarding the loan of US$ 44,000 million in favor of the southern country.
According to the Argentine media La Nación, Economy Minister Luis Caputo addressed the issue again at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, in which he would have said that he hoped that Valdés was removed from the conversation between Argentina and the IMF, and that the dialogue was only held with Luis Cubeddu, current deputy director of the office led by the Chilean.
This occurs just days after President Javier Milei launched harsh criticism against the former Minister of Finance of President Michelle Bachelet, considering that he “turned a blind eye” to the increase in liabilities accumulated in the Central Bank during the administration. by Alberto Fernández.
The president attributed this to Valdés’ “ties with the São Paulo Forum,” a club of left-wing political parties.
However, this impasse does not seem to be new for the international organization. According to sources cited by the newspaper, “For the IMF it was not a surprise that Javier Milei criticized Valdés, this had already been discussed before with the Fund’s authorities.”
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According to sources close to the Casa Rosada, The president had already expressed his dissatisfaction with the Chilean economist during his meeting with the managing director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, on June 14.
The expectation on Thursday was focused on the press conference that Georgieva would give in the afternoon to talk about the United States economy because the Fund finished the annual review of Article IV. The appearance with Valdés would be supporting the economist.
During the meeting, Georgieva and the IMF’s top brass only referred to issues related to the US, and when opening up for consultations, they stressed that they would not discuss any other issues that were not related to the US market.
Shortly after, Valdés received another great endorsement. In this case of Argentine representative Ricardo López Murphy, who supported “dollarization now” and praised the reputation of the Chilean economist.
“He is an economist who advised President Ricardo Lagos, then he was an official of the Fund, he was a minister of Chile, now he is the director of the Western Hemisphere Department; We should treat it with some care… He is one of the most outstanding economists in Latin America, highly professional and of high intellectual quality; and the report that the IMF made on Argentina is probably the best report they have written in many years,” he said.
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