If the past is not repeated, at least couples memories. In Argentina, that rhyme sounds like a capital escape, hidden deficit, bond placement, IMF multicolored loans and other multilateral credit agencies. While the minister Luis Caputo Smile in photos with global fund executives, The BCRA reproduceswith worrying accuracy, the libretto of 2018; Take debt to avoid devaluing, pretend fiscal balance, and pray so that the dollar does not speak before October.
This time, however, the Déjà Vu has a darker nuance. Because what was previously a political crisis or a financial run, today threatens to be an explosive combination of both, under a libertarian experiment that plays with matches in an institutional fuel deposit. Is 2025 the year where Macri and the Rúa shake hands in the rearview mirror? Everything indicates yes. And the worst, with a caputo behind the wheel again.
The current economic program, headed by Javier Milei and Luis Caputois supported by a known but worn financial architecture; Take international loans, issue bonds from treasure and suppress the demand for foreign exchange through heterodox controls disguised as “freedom.” The figures show it.
April’s financial account showed a surplus of US $ 14.2 billiontraced by the disbursement of US $ 12.4 billion of the IMF, whose program was renegotiated to “avoid premature collapse.” The accumulation of gross reserves was consolidated in US $ 13,900 millionwhile net reserves remained negative in (-U $ S7.2 billion)breaking the IMF goal by U $ 4,200 million. To make up this result, the Government launched the 2030 Bonte -un bond in pesos signed in dollars with a rate of 29.5% – and announced a repo operation by U $ 2,000 million which implies more currency debt, but without generating genuine currencies.
This type of financial engineering remembers with surgical precision the actions of the Caputo itself during 2018, when reservations were systematically sold to contain the dollar until the IMF had to intervene with the largest stand-by loan in its history. The same logic today; Maintain a low exchange rate, force the illusion of stability, postpone the adjustment of relative prices and “burst dollars” to air with the legislative elections air.
In parallel, the real economy creates. Tax collection fell 17.6% year -on -year in Maywith a retraction of 39.8% in profits and 21.1% In income from foreign trade. Meanwhile, consumption still does not recover; VAT grew just 3.9% year -on -yearbut fell 0.9% intermennsual. The fiscal surplus depends no longer on cuts but on productive miracles, in A country where imports grow by national production replacement, and tourists spend dollars with an overvalued weight.
The balance of payments also betrays inconsistencies. Despite the transitory bounce in exports (due to the elimination of the Blend dollar), the current account had a deficit of U $ 600 million. Tourism outputs exceeded U $ S 961 million Only in April, while foreign direct investment remains at nymph levels. How are the BCRA coffers filled? With debt. And more debt.
The scheme reminds the cocktail that preceded the collapse of 2001; Deficit funded with dollars, recession induced by fiscal adjustment, artificially sustained exchange delay, and a minister who swears to have everything under control until the day before the disaster.
Argentine history is not repeated, but is chained. 2025 could be the year in which the ghosts of 2001 and 2018 are reunited in a new tragedy, this time amplified by a more fragile social context, a more radicalized leadership and a political system on the edge of the collapse. The compulsive use of financial tools for makeup structural imbalances – such as indebtedness in dollars to sustain the fictional value of the weight – is not an economic plan, but a time bomb.
Luis Caputo, the same as in 2018 he delivered reserves to speculators, today seems to repeat his libretto with less margin of maneuver and greater technical cynicism. Only this time, the outcome may not be a simple exchange rate, but an institutional and social implosion. If in 2001 the default was the spark and in 2018 the exchange crisis was the alarm, in 2025 we could face the total fire; A brutal synthesis between the social collapse of the end of convertibility and the failure of the macrismo financial bicycle.
Director of Esperanza Foundation. https://fundacionesperanza.com.ar/ UBA postgraduate professor and masters in private universities. Master in International Economic Policy, Doctor of Political Science, Author of 6 Books
Source: Ambito
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