Peronist government of Argentina announces that it cannot pay 2021 maturities to the IMF

The argentine president Alberto Fernandez stated that your country cannot pay International Monetary Fund (IMF) this year’s debt maturities and questioned whether the agency is trying to impose an economic program based on the adjustment in the framework of the current negotiations to refinance a loan for about US $ 44,000 million.

Fernández told AM 750 radio that “no one in the world thinks that the Argentina can pay US $ 19,000 million “this year between principal and interest, which will be necessary” to continue talking and find a solution with the Fund.

Argentina maintains a long and arduous negotiation with the credit institution to refinance US $ 44,000 million of a loan granted to the government of the conservative Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) in the middle of a currency crisis. Of the US $ 19,000 million that expire this year, only in the first quarter is it necessary to cancel US $ 3,900 million.

Fernández also complained that the IMF says in its statutes “that it will analyze the program that the country proposes”, when “in truth what it is trying to do, once again, is to impose a program on us.”

The president said that his country proposes to order the economy and make it grow to meet the payments, while the IMF defends “the eternal recipe” of adjustment, consisting, among other things, in the shrinking of the economy and a lower import of inputs for count on more dollars in order to pay off the debt. “The truth is that we are not here to do that and that is why the discussion is delayed,” he said.

Fernández also pointed out that the United States -the country with the greatest weight in the IMF’s board- “has not had a clear position on the Argentine program”, although “if one takes into account what it is doing today, it should accompany our proposal (since ) is carrying out a keynesian plan of great magnitude ”.

Last week, the president and his Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán, said that the negotiations are at a “crucial” moment and that Argentina does not intend to accept an adjustment that could conspire against its current economic growth. The point that is generating the most disagreements is the amount of the fiscal deficit to which the South American country should commit.

The government also insists that the credit granted in 2018 was “political” and allowed the Macri government to sustain itself.

Argentina aspires to obtain the greatest political support inside and outside its borders in its talks with the IMF.

Argentine Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero will travel to the United States next week to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with whom he is expected to discuss the matter.

At the local level, the Argentine Minister of Economy has scheduled meetings with opposition governors, senators, deputies, businessmen and trade unionists in an attempt to show the unity of the different sectors vis-à-vis the credit organization.