\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t The United States Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan public policy research institute within the U.S. Congress, released a report last Friday suggesting that lawmakers legislate \u201cspecific limitations\u201d on the fund used to carry out bailouts like the one Argentina received.<\/p>\n
The conclusion is part of a brief written by two economists on the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF), the emergency reserve fund the Department of the Treasury used to assist the Milei administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In October 2025, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. would provide Argentina with a currency swap line worth US$20 billion via the Central Bank. It also announced a purchase of the country\u2019s USD-denominated bonds and a standby credit line, strengthening the relationship between Argentine President Javier Milei and U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
The ESF was originally created by Congress in 1934 to maintain the fixed-dollar exchange rate. After the United States abandoned the gold standard in 1971, the fund\u2019s use was expanded for supporting foreign governments, some transactions with the IMF, and stabilizing U.S. financial markets.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The brief opens by saying that the financial support to Argentina in 2025 has \u201crenewed debates about the ESF\u2019s function and purpose.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
After reviewing the fund\u2019s background, the authors pointed out that Argentina\u2019s US$20 billion bailout was the second largest use of the ESF in a foreign country and was \u201copposed by some members of Congress because it appeared \u2018to be an effort to unduly influence Argentina\u2019s democratic elections.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The report, which was written by macroeconomic expert Marc Labonte and international trade specialist Rebecca Nelson, ends with a series of policy recommendations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Policy recommendations The report highlights how President Donald Trump framed assistance to Argentina as \u201cbased on ideological rather than financial grounds,\u201d a position that has \u201craised questions about whether more limitations on the ESF are needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The authors pointed out that U.S. Congress \u201ccould legislate more specific limitations\u201d on the ESF\u2019s use, such as \u201ccapping its size, limiting how it can be used, or requiring congressional approval when the Treasury Secretary initiates interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n
They added that lawmakers could also consider new reporting requirements that improve the \u201cflow of information\u201d from the administration to Congress. If deputies wanted to support the fund as a crisis-response tool, they could also increase ESF resources.<\/p>\n
Critics of the bailout The bailout received heavy criticism at the time in the U.S. In October 2025, Congressman David Scott sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent demanding details on the use of the ESF to establish the swap line with Argentina\u2019s Central Bank.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The lawmaker called the decision \u201creckless\u201d in a letter co-signed with 11 members of Congress.<\/p>\n
Following the bailout, Elizabeth Warren and other U.S. senators introduced the \u201cNo Argentina Bailout Act\u201d bill. The goal was to prevent the Treasury from \u201cbailing out Argentina\u2019s financial markets and its global investors while American families are struggling at home and the Trump administration is shutting down our own government.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bernie Sanders, a sitting U.S. senator who signed the bill and also ran as a presidential candidate in the 2016 Democratic primaries, criticized Trump for throwing \u201c15 million Americans off health care [\u2026] because we don\u2019t have enough money\u201d while also giving \u201cUS$20 billion to bail out the right-wing regime of Argentina.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t let that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United States Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan public policy research institute within the U.S. Congress, released a report last Friday suggesting that lawmakers legislate \u201cspecific limitations\u201d on the fund used to carry out bailouts like the one Argentina received. The conclusion is part of a brief written by two economists on the Exchange Stabilization […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":57142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,81,82,7211,83],"tags":[96,596,100,7210,599],"class_list":["post-57141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economics","category-international-relations","category-scott-bessent","category-u-s-congress","category-us-bailout-of-argentina","tag-economics","tag-international-relations","tag-scott-bessent","tag-u-s-congress","tag-us-bailout-of-argentina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}