The fact, unprecedented in Argentine economic history, was presented as “technical collaboration” by Minister Caputo. In fact, it represented a formal transfer of the power to intervene; a transfer of the monetary trigger to a foreign actor.
The episode might seem like a temporary anecdote, but it condenses a structural mutation. In peripheral economies, exchange intervention defines the limit between autonomy and subordination. When a State delegates that function, it abdicates its sovereign decision-making capacity. Since that day, the value of the peso stopped depending on the BCRA and it became a variable managed by algorithms and Wall Street operators, under the supervision of the North American Treasury.
Scott Bessentin his dual role as Treasury Secretary and former Soros manager, embodies the paradox of this operation. His career does not refer to public service, but to art of speculative capture. According to Mallaby (2010), during “Black Wednesday” it was he who persuaded Stanley Druckenmiller that sterling would not withstand market pressure, paving the way for one of the biggest gains in hedge fund history. Thirty years later, the same strategist reappears to “help” a central bank instead of defeating it.
Bessent presents himself as a neutral technician, but acts as the architect of a new hegemony. His intervention in Buenos Aires reconfigures the relationship between the US Treasury and dependent countries. These are no longer just conditional loans – like those from the IMF – but direct participation in the management of domestic liquidity. The peripheral State not only indebts its balance sheet; give up your control board.
Caputo celebrates the operation as a “diplomatic achievement” and highlights Donald Trump’s commitment to “allies who welcome American investment” (Scott Bessent announced…, 2025). The phrase contains a principle of contemporary vassalage; Sovereignty is measured by openness to foreign investment, not by the ability to regulate it. The language of the market becomes the grammar of politics.
Reingold (2005) warned that on Wall Street “narratives of success always hide the architecture of subordination.” In practice, the Argentine authorities are no longer responsible for their financial decisions; are functional delegates of an ecosystem that rewards docility.
The $20 billion currency swap, presented as a “shield,” is actually a system of contingent credit lines under US control; The funds are not liquid, nor free to use, nor activatable without authorization. Argentina “receives” dollars that it cannot use, but is committed to maintaining its fiscal discipline and its trade openness.
In terms of financial sociology, the Argentine case can be interpreted as a laboratory of advanced monetary colonialism; External control is no longer exercised by direct coercion or explicit debt, but by technical intermediation.
The national State continues to exist formally, but its instruments are operated by third parties. His speech remains, but its execution is externalized. Economic policy becomes a service offshore.
In the markets, the maneuver was celebrated. Sovereign bonds rose to 8.4%, Argentine stocks rose 27% and the country risk temporarily fell. But the joy was as instantaneous as it was superficial. What the analysts interpreted as “confidence” was the certainty that Argentina had been incorporated into the control perimeter of the US Treasury. In other words; political risk was replaced by direct guardianship.
Thus, The exchange rate run was resolved, not by a national strategy, but by suspension of autonomy. Argentina renounced being a subject of economic policy and became a managed market. Sovereignty – a concept that once referred to self-government – was reduced to a line of trust in Bloomberg terminals.
Conclusion of both publications: outsourced sovereignty, programmed dependency
The handover of Argentine financial control to Wall Street and the US Treasury constitutes much more than an episode of economic policy; It is a turning point in the history of dependency. Unlike classic debt cycles or IMF programs, current subordination is based on the internalization of the financial mandate. Argentine officials are not pressured from outside; they think like wall streetanticipate your demands and act on your behalf. Dependency (not dollarization) has become endogenous.
In theoretical terms, we could speak of a “configuration of actors” where the national State and international financial agents make up the same field of power. The “delivery” of economic policy is not an imposition, but a co-construction; Caputo and Bessent share rationality, language and objectives. Theory becomes practice, and practice becomes subordination.
The process culminates in what Ney (1974) would call “the privatization of the public interest”; the replacement of the common good by the interest of investors. In this context, Argentina no longer debates between neoliberalism and statism, but between local or remote administration. The Argentine Treasury is not managed in Buenos Aires, but in Washington.
The consequences are multiple. At the economic level, the country loses the capacity to manage its external cycle; in the political, it loses democratic legitimacy; in the symbolic, it loses story. Ministers become spokespersons for rating agenciesbudgets are written based on debt and the notion of sovereignty fades in the technical language of global finance.
Reingold (2005) described this phenomenon crudely: “Wall Street does not buy countries; it rents them seasonally.” Argentina, in 2025, became tenant of her own Treasury. The 20 billion swap was not a rescue, but a rental contract with an obedience clause.
The question that emerges is disturbing: can a nation regain control once it has delegated its financial sovereignty? The response does not depend only on political will, but on the institutional capacity to build knowledge and technical autonomy. As Sautu (2005) taught, theory is not decoration; It is the instrument that allows us to understand the processes and, eventually, reverse them. Without theory, dependency becomes naturalized; with theory, it can become an object of transformation.
Revert “the logic of outsourcing” It involves more than renegotiating a swap or modifying monetary policy. Suppose reinstall the economy as a field of public decision; rebuild a BCRA capable of thinking for itself, a technical elite that does not depend on Wall Street and a citizenry that understands that “market trust” is not equivalent to social prosperity.
Ultimately, The Caputo-Bessent case reveals the triumph of market ideology over the idea of the State. What is presented as efficiency is submission; What is announced as modernization is emptying. Argentina was not invaded; It was delivered by contract. And that, perhaps, is the contemporary form of the conquest.
References: Bloomberg. (2025, October 9). Bessent says $20 billion US-Argentina currency swap finalized. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-10-09/bessent-says-20-billion-us-argentina-currency-swap-finalized, Buenos Aires Herald. (2025, October 10). US Treasury intervenes directly in Argentine forex market. https://Buenosairesherald.com/economics/dollar-peso/us-treasury-intervenes-directly-in-argentine-forex-market, Mallaby, S. (2010). More money than God: the secret history of hedge funds. Penguin Press. Ney, R. (1974). The Wall Street gang. Praeger Publishers. Reingold, D. (2005). Confessions of a Wall Street analyst: A true story of inside information and corruption in the stock market. HarperCollins. Reuters. (2025, September 24). US ready to support Argentina with $20 billion swap line, Bessent says. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-ready-support-argentina-needed-bessent-says-2025-09-24, Sautu, R. (2005). Everything is theory: research objectives and methods. Lumiere Editions.
*Doctor in Political Science, on YouTube: @DrPabloTigani, on X: @pablotigani
Source: Ambito
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