Tag: argentina

Trump’s Argentina bailout pits two competing MAGA factions against one another

President Donald Trump’s attempt to give Argentina’s fledgling economy financial assistance is creating a headache for him back in the U.S. as part of his base — farmers — are upset about the possibility of bailing out a country that is competing for a major crop — soybean exports to China.

Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promised a possible $20 billion aid package to Argentina’s leader Javier Milei. They argue the plan is needed to stabilize a major Trump and U.S. ally ahead of October elections that are important for Milei to retain power. At the same time, some of Milei’s policies are helping U.S. investors and negatively impacting American soybean producers.

Investors and hedge funds have bought into Milei’s stewardship of the bedraggled country. Fidelity Investments, T. Rowe Price Group and Pimco all own bonds in Argentina, according to Bloomberg. In September, traders began selling off investments there after Milei lost some crucial local elections over corruption scandals.

News of U.S. help boosted some of the assets, but Argentina’s currency is still performing poorly among the stable of international currencies.

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“Farmageddon” – Farmers Across the U.S. Sound the Alarm on the Disaster Unfolding from Trump’s Tariffs

As the U.S. now heads into the Fall harvest season, the impacts of Trump’s tariffs are being more clearly seen, where farmers all across the U.S. are sounding the alarm about the collapse of our agricultural system, with one out of every three farms going out of business in certain parts of the country.

What we are seeing this Fall in the U.S. are the effects of a mass loss of farm labor due to deportations, increased prices on farm equipment and other farm materials that are mostly imported (like parts for John Deere tractors), and of course the loss of the China market, the country where most U.S. farm products have been exported to in past years.

Ohio family farmers describe life under Trump tariffs: ‘We’re in a hell of a mess here.’

“We’re in a hell of a mess here,” said Ohio farmer Chris Gibbs as he worked on his combine at the start of harvest season.

“A severe cash flow mess,” he sighed. “A working capital mess.”

Gibbs, who farms more than 500 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, and alfalfa hay in Shelby County, along with a 90-head cow-calf operation, described the five-alarm fire raging in the farming community from Trump’s blanket tariffs.

Some growers have called the fallout from his chaotic trade war, and the reciprocal tariffs it provoked, a “farmageddon” that could ruin what made rural America great.

It’s that bad.

The Trump tariffs are shrinking incomes and exploding expenses for farmers, who, thanks to a president they still overwhelmingly support, fear losing their farms.

Many don’t know how much longer they can hang on.

Trump’s punitive tariffs on foreign buyers made their crops less competitive in markets around the world (and drove down prices more) while other senseless tariffs on fertilizer, steel, aluminum, and lumber just sent the cost of doing business through the roof.

The double whammy of Trump tariffs is especially painful for family farms that make up about 87% of all farms in Ohio.

Individual farmers struggle to break even, buy supplies, sell their crops, and build a sustainable future with long-term customers.

But the current tariff dance with Trump keeps them up nights.

Everything a farmer buys “from phosphate and potash to agricultural chemicals, herbicides, machine parts, is up by 50% over the last decade, while our proceeds from the sale of crops is down by 40%,” said fifth-generation Ohio farmer Joe Logan.

The former president of the Ohio Farmers union — a group focused on family farmers — maintained “the industrial agricultural community is chugging right along, raking in billions of dollars” while family farmers are not making any money.

Instead, they’re battling irrational tariffs, rising costs, high interest rates, farm bankruptcies and abiding dread.

How will they move crops without buyers or the major trade deals Trump promised to fix what he broke? (Full article.)

The biggest crop losses to China are American soybeans. Last year China bought $12.6 billion of soybeans, and this year they have bought ZERO, since Trump levied tariffs against them earlier in the year.

Instead, China has turned to Brazil to import soybeans, and after the Trump Administration just gave Argentina a new $20 billion bailout package to “help their economy,” Argentina immediately removed their own tariff to China and sold them several shiploads of soybeans, betraying U.S. farmers.

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Leaked texts on Scott Bessent’s phone suggest the White House got played bailing out Argentina—and U.S. soybean farmers are the casualties

“Finally—just a heads up, I’m getting more intel, but this is highly unfortunate,” the text said. “We bailed out Argentina yesterday and in return, the Argentine’s [sic] are removing their export tariffs on grains, reducing their price, and sold a bunch of soybeans to China, at a time when we would normally be selling to China. Soy prices are dropping further because of it. This gives China more leverage on us.”

A second message said, “On a plane but Scott I can call you when I land.”

Last week, Bessent outlined on X a plan to financially support Argentina following extensive talks between longtime allies President Donald Trump and Argentine President Javier Milei, a libertarian economist with a populist, Trump-like appeal, known for wielding a chain saw and cloning his enormous mastiff dogs.

The Treasury has arranged a $20 billion swap line with Argentina’s central bank, part of an effort to infuse the South American country with capital. Stabilizing Argentina ahead of an October midterm would help Milei’s chances of staying in power. Milei has had more success taming Argentina’s hyperinflation than first expected, but has been dealing with a brewing currency crisis and several corruption scandals.

Amid Argentina’s talks with the U.S., China ordered at least 10 cargoes of soybeans from the South American country, Reuters reported, citing multiple traders.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and Treasury Department did not respond to Fortune’s requests for comment.

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Trump Admin’s $20 Billion ‘Bail Out’ for Argentina’s Milei Raises Eyebrows

The Trump administration says it is working to provide tens of billions of dollars to Argentina’s President Javier Milei, in a financial bailout that many critics say clashes with President Donald Trump’s “America First” platform.

The U.S. State Department told Newsweek Thursday that the America First Foreign Assistance programs must align with administration policies and advance concrete U.S. national interests.

Why It Matters

On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the United States is in talks to provide $20 billion to Milei. The announcement comes months after the Trump administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in an effort to instead support programs aligned with Trump’s “America First” agenda.

Argentina is one of the largest South American economies and has notable natural resources, including oil, gas, uranium, and lithium, which are often used in batteries.

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Milei Raises Government Spending While Pledging Zero Deficit

Argentine President Javier Milei has built his presidency around a single rule: zero deficit. Yet even as he vows to keep the budget balanced, his new 2026 plan raises pensions, health, and education spending. The shift comes just a month before midterm elections, testing whether his austerity brand can survive political reality. 

Since taking office in December 2023, Milei slashed billions in spending, froze public works, and cut federal funding to provinces, among other austerity measures. University and health budgets were hit especially hard, leading to layoffs and reduced services. Retirees saw their benefits shrink as inflation eroded payments, while tighter rules limited access to pensions. As a result, Argentina reached its first primary surplus in more than a decade and its first full-year surplus in 123 years. But the cost was steep: Consumption plunged and poverty spiked above 50 percent before easing in recent months.

The political backlash hit hardest in the province of Buenos Aires—home to nearly 40 percent of voters—where Milei’s coalition suffered a defeat earlier this month. In response, Milei rolled out a 2026 budget that expands spending in areas he once vowed to shrink.

The plan increases pensions and disability payments by 5 percent, boosts health spending by 17 percent, and lifts education spending by 8 percent—all above projected inflation. As Martín Rodríguez Yebra of La Nación put it, the package amounts to “a white flag in the three battles that eroded his popularity this election year.”

Milei insists fiscal balance remains “set in stone.” The numbers partly back him up: total revenues for FY 2026 are projected at 15.6 percent of gross domestic product, up 0.2 percentage points from 2025. On paper, the budget still balances.

The biggest challenge is political. Without a congressional majority, Milei has relied on vetoes to block deficit-boosting bills. By conceding targeted increases, he hopes to blunt those challenges while courting centrists who dislike Peronist populism but remain wary of his radical cures. The October 26 legislative elections will decide whether he grows his foothold in Congress or stays boxed in.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) earlier this year, Milei handed Elon Musk a chainsaw—a symbol of his vow to slash the state. Now, with midterms looming, he is testing whether that brand of austerity can withstand political reality. Voters will decide whether the chainsaw keeps buzzing or runs out of fuel.

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Argentina charges daughter of World War II Nazi for concealing decades-old art theft

The daughter and son-in-law of a Nazi who stole art from European Jews during World War II were charged in an Argentine court on Sept 4 with hiding numerous works, including 22 by French painter Henri Matisse.

The pair came into the spotlight after an 18th century painting stolen from a Dutch art collector was 

spotted in an Argentine property ad in August, only to vanish once again.

“Portrait of a Lady” by Italian baroque painter Giuseppe Ghislandi was missing for eight decades before being photographed in the home of a daughter of Nazi Friedrich Kadgien, who had fled to Argentina after the war and died there in 1978.

Police opened an investigation and conducted multiple raids in search of the painting, only to find 22 works from the 1940s by Matisse (1869-1954), and others whose origins have yet to be determined.

The artworks were found in the Argentine seaside resort of Mar del Plata in possession of members of the Kadgien family, officials said.

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Painting stolen by Nazis during WWII believed discovered in Argentine real estate listing

An 18th-century portrait stolen by the Nazis during WWII is believed to have resurfaced in the most unexpected place: hanging above a sofa in a coastal Argentinian home and discovered not by law enforcement or a museum, but spotted in a photo on a real estate website.

The painting, “Portrait of a Lady” by Italian baroque artist Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi, belonged to Jacques Goudstikker, a prominent Dutch-Jewish art dealer whose collection of more than 1,100 works was seized after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. Senior Nazi officials, including Hermann Göring, acquired hundreds of pieces, according to the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE).

The potential discovery is the result of years of work by Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad (AD) investigative journalists Cyril Rosman, Paul Post and Peter Schouten, who have been pursuing the case for nearly a decade.

Rosman said the team began tracing Friedrich Kadgien, Göring’s financial adviser and close confidant, several years ago.

“Kadgien escaped to South America at the end of the war,” Rosman told ABC News. “We knew from archival documents that he brought diamonds, jewelry, and two stolen paintings with him. We’ve spent years trying to piece together his life here and where those paintings ended up.”

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Curious Cattle Mutilation Reported in Argentina

An Argentine rancher was left scratching his head after one of his cows was mysteriously slain in a manner that bore the hallmarks of the infamous cattle mutilation phenomenon. According to a local media report, the downed animal was found on Monday morning in the community of Santillan. Nelson Billordo recalled how he was alerted to the strange situation by a farmhand who stumbled upon the dead cow and marveled to him that it appeared as if something had tried “to rip its face off.” When the rancher went out to investigate, he was shaken and mystified by what he saw.

In a manner eerily reminiscent of the cattle mutilation phenomenon, the animal had its tongue and eyes removed with surgical precision. The cuts, Billordo observed, were “cauterized and it wasn’t bleeding anywhere.” Meanwhile, the remains of the cow attracted no scavengers, which seemed to steer clear of the creature. Indicating that “this is the first time I’ve seen such a thing,” the rancher noted that his property is fairly isolated which would seem to preclude the human suspect for the slaying. To that end, regarding the strangeness of the slaying, he posited that “a normal person wouldn’t do this.”

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US and Argentina announce plan to create an alternative global health system after withdrawing from WHO

The US Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and his Argentine counterpart, Minister of Health Mario Lugones, have signed a joint declaration reaffirming their countries’ withdrawals from the World Health Organisation (“WHO”) and announcing plans to create an alternative international health system.

The new system aims to be grounded in scientific integrity, transparency, sovereignty and accountability, with Kennedy and Lugones stating that their withdrawal from WHO marks the beginning of a new path towards building a modern global health cooperation model.

During his visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina, Kennedy met with Lugones and Argentine President Javier Milei to discuss key health priorities – including healthcare reform, addressing chronic disease and their new global health collaboration – to define a joint work agenda that will strengthen transparency and trust in the health system.

Lugones expressed his shared vision with Kennedy, stating that they believe in the future of collaboration in global health and have similar visions about the path forward, with the declaration expressing a shared vision of the challenges facing the region’s health systems and the measures needed to transform them.

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In the Documents That Javier Milei Has Just Released – Related to Nazi Criminals Who Fled to Argentina After WW2 – A Chance for the South American Nation To Come to Terms With Its Past

Argentine President Javier Milei fulfilled a symbolic promise by releasing documents detailing the activities of Nazi criminals who fled to the country after the collapse of National Socialist Germany in 1945.

The previously classified files open a window into Argentina’s turbulent past, and reveal the lives as fugitives of a number of notorious Nazis such as Josef Mengele and Adolf Eichmann.

The Daily Mail reported:

“The 1,850 declassified documents published by the General Archive of the Nation (AGN) also include records of banking operations, secret intelligence files and previously confidential Defense Ministry reports. The files are available for public viewing on a government website, following an order by President Javier Milei.

The decision to publish the documents follows a formal request from United States Senator Steve Daines (Republican-Montana) and representatives from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre during meetings in February.”

But more than just complying with the US request, the move is an integral part of Milei’s commitment to transparency about the country’s controversial history.

“The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is investigating the Credit Suisse bank’s links to Nazism, has received copies of the files.”

In the documents we see the different fates of ‘monster doctor’ Joseph Mengele and Adolf Eichmann, the ‘architect of the Holocaust’.

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