“The relationship between our two countries is longstanding and positive, and we want to be as supportive as we can,” he added.
When asked if he considers the signing of a pact between Argentina and the IMF to be imminent, Nichols stressed that the head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, and the Argentine Foreign Minister, Santiago Cafiero, held a “very positive” meeting on Tuesday in Washington.
The US, the IMF’s main shareholder, is key to a new agreement with Argentina, the institution’s main debtor.
Argentina has been seeking for months a new agreement with the IMF to replace the one signed in 2018 by the government of Mauricio Macri in 2018, for 57,000 million dollars, of which the country has already received 44,000 million.
The government of Alberto Fernández, who renounced the 13,000 million dollars of the final tranche of the loan when he took office in 2019, seeks an agreement with the Fund that reduces Argentina’s fiscal deficit through growth, not by cutting public spending.
During the meeting with Cafiero, Blinken “encouraged Argentina to present a solid economic policy framework that returns growth to the country,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Tuesday.
Nichols, who participated in the bilateral meeting, also spoke with Cafiero during a dinner on Tuesday with President Joe Biden’s adviser for the Americas, Juan González, among other senior US officials.
Sources from the Argentine Foreign Ministry assured AFP that González then told Cafiero the support of the White House for Argentina’s negotiations with the IMF.
The third economy in Latin America, Argentina had a growth of 10% of the Gross Domestic Product in 2021, after falling 9.9% in 2020. But it is weighed down by poverty (40%) and by inflation of 50%, of the highest in the world.
Source From: Ambito
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