Change of regime or output Staging? Capitals already have the return ticket

The US $ 12,000 million already disbursed by the IMF in 2025, plus another US $ 3,000 for 2025, plus another US $ 6.1 billion promised by multilateral organizations and new rounds of “rest with international banks”- They are not signs of genuine trust in the Argentine real economy, but the fuel that seeks to guarantee an orderly exit of capital at the time investors decide to close positions.

The minimum period of 180 days to maintain new investments is nothing more than a pilla for clueless. Financial architecture is designed for dollar profits earned in 2024 and the first 2025 quarter can be turned abroad without friction. As on other occasions, The dollars that enter do not do so to finance productive development, but to ensure liquidity before an eventual stampede before the elections.

While the market celebrates the “new exchange regime” announced by the Argentine government and the large investment banks celebrate it as a step towards “normalization”, behind the technical smoke and the elegant phrases hide a known play. A play that we saw too many times. Instead of a structural change, what has been launched is a strategy of Carry Trade with steroids; dollars provided to sustain an intervened exchange rate, high rates in pesos to retain speculative capitals, and the illusion of an opening that is not such.

The heart of the operation is in sight; The IMF already disbursed US $ 12,000 millionwith Other US $ 3,000 million compromised for June and Novemberand multilateral organisms are expected to contribute U $ 6.100 million more For 2025. As if that does not reach, the BCRA negotiates expanding the line of Rest with international banks by U $ 2,000 million. All this in a context in which negative international reserves were in (-U $ s10.4 billion)and where gross reserves barely reached the 15% of the IMF standard. That is, without this Rain of dollars borrowedthe system simply was no more.

The question is not whether this play stabilizes the exchange system, but for whom stabilizes. Because while liberalization is promised, capital control is maintained; While talking about flotation, a rigid band is fixed between $ 1,000 and 1,400, with sliding of 1% monthly. Restrictions are relaxed … but only to distract the financial flows that have been guaranteed today in 180 days. No one is going to play betting after the elections, but before. And there is the trap, an economy is not being prepared to grow, the scenario is being prepared so that they can escape – in orderly and profitable form – financial gains of the year 2024 and the first quarter of 2025.

Exchange band: an elegant stocks

The establishment of an exchange band between 1,000 and 1,400 pesos per dollar, with monthly sliding of 1%, is presented as a step towards the flotation. However, Flexibility with liberalization should not be confused. The stock is still in force, and the BCRA maintains iron control over the pipeline of currencies and the rules of the game. What is sought is not to eliminate restrictions, but guarantee a predictability environment for those who speculate and speculate a few more months in pesosbut they plan to escape capital and profits in dollars.

Macroeconomic impact: deceleration, deficit and social risk

The “success” of the scheme depends on the continuous arrival of dollars borrowed, a controlled exchange rate appreciation and an interest rate high enough to sustain the “Carry Trade”. But this combination is recessive, decelerated growth, reduces collection and expands the financial deficit. To compensate for it, the only way will be a greater adjustment on primary public spending.

This raises a dangerous dilemma: The deeper the cut of public spending, the greater the risk of social conflict. The Government, instead of building a sustainable stabilization strategy, is simply “kicking the ball forward” to reach the elections. The Argentine experience reminds us that this dynamic is fragile; In 2001, the convertibility experiment ended up collapsing shortly after the electoral defeat of the ruling party in October, with the legislatives of media term.

We are not facing a system change, but against a sophistication of the old financial valuation model, sustained by external debt and exchange repression. Market enthusiasm cannot be confused with macroeconomic sustainability. Meanwhile, Argentine society is still called to pay the cost of a model that privileges short -term financial gain over long -term structural stability.

This is not a “managed flotation regime”, it is a staging to contain the exchange rate until the big players decide to leave. And when that happens, the dollars will be ready. They are not genuine reserves: they are loans that transform the State into guarantor of a financial party. The real objective is clear: ensure the repatriation of dividends, cancel intra -company debt and release the capital exit that, sooner rather than later, will look for the door.

Argentina is not making a regime change. He is doing time. Is buying oxygen to reach the elections. But as in 2001when From the Rúa and Machinea They tried to sustain convertibility with the Armorpolitical logic is stronger than economic. We already know this end; First the trust goes, then the dollars, and finally the minister.

The social cost is the elephant in the room. For this engineering to work, we must continue adjusting the primary expense in a year of elections. – How much more can you cut without the conflict exploding? – What happens when the adjustment plays the bones of the real society? – And what will happen when those who celebrate these measures begin to liquidate positions? – The regime did not change. The words, the Excel paintings, and the suit with which the next capital escape is changed.

Director of Esperanza Foundation. Postgraduate professor at UBA and private universities. Master in International Economic Policy, Doctor of Political Science, author of six books.