The cooling off of the negotiations with Argentina, and the veiled threat of a chained cessation of payments with Egypt, left the representatives of the IMF partner countries on fire.
The country’s main ally before the organization is the director of China, Zhengxim Zhang, who this week played hard in favor of Argentina.
Zhang sent an internal note to the IMF board where he announced that if the Fund continues to delay the approval of the agreement, China will authorize Argentina to use the second tranche of the swap to pay all maturities with the agency.
The provocation is not minor, because it sweeps away the role of lender of last resort for the IMF, a figure that explains the essence of the organization.
According to the website La Política Online, the United States considers the rescue of Ukraine a priority and the delay in these funds motivated Gita Gopinath, representative of the Treasury and number two in the IMF, to confront Kristalina Georgieva, appointed by Europe, for the delay in disbursements.
This sequence is superimposed in the dynamics of the organism that the underestimation of the multinational forums that Donald Trump’s foreign policy deployed was not free for the influence of the United States in the IMF.
the swap
Regarding Chinese funds, Argentina has a currency swap with China for 130,000 million yuan, equivalent to USD 19,000 million. This swap, which was renewed by Massa and Pesce on their recent trip to Beijing for the next three years, today represents 60% of the gross reserves held by the Central Bank.
During Sergio Massa’s trip to China, it was agreed that Argentina could access the application of the equivalent of USD 5 billion to finance purchases from the Asian giant and pay the International Monetary Fund.
This amount could be renewed for another 5 billion, as the previous ones are used. At the moment, 14,000 million, remain settled in the accounts of the Central Bank as a credit for accounting reinforcement of international reserves.
