The United States has made an unprecedented currency intervention in Argentina to support Milei

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday entered the Argentine currency market by making a direct purchase of pesos through U.S. banks on the eve of the Argentine parliamentary elections. This was reported by as stated by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent .

He announced $20 billion in financial support to Argentina through a swap line.

According to him, this step will help maintain the stability of the Argentine currency and strengthen investor confidence.

"To this end, today we have directly purchased Argentine pesos," Bessent announced.

The exact amount of the purchase was not disclosed.

According to the Argentine newspaper Clarin, the transaction was conducted by Santander, Citibank and JP Morgan on behalf of the US Treasury. They sold dollars and bought Argentine pesos on the official market, which helped stabilize the exchange rate at 1,420 pesos per dollar.

"The intervention took the market by surprise. Bonds were the first to react, rising by more than 5% on average, followed by stocks, sometimes by 10%. Later, the impact was felt in the foreign exchange market: after initially rising to 1,469 pesos to the dollar, the exchange rate quickly reversed and ended the day at 1,420 pesos, down from 1,430 pesos on Wednesday. The retail dollar closed at 1450 pesos, a slight decline of about 0.3%," Clarin writes.

"Argentina is going through a moment of serious liquidity shortage. The international community, including the IMF, unanimously supports Argentina, but only the United States can act quickly. And we are acting," Bessent commented on the decision of the US Treasury Department.

The Argentine newspaper writes that the US used part of its reserves in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), exchanged them for dollars through the Federal Reserve, and then transferred the funds through US banks to their Argentine branches.

After buying the peso, the banks probably invested it in Argentine bonds, which hit a record $379 million in pesos on Thursday.

The intervention came at a critical time: in five trading days, Argentina spent $1.7 billion of its reserves trying to maintain the exchange rate. Ten days before the presidential election scheduled for October 26, the country was on the verge of a currency collapse.

• on October 26, 2025, Argentina will hold legislative elections to elect half of the Chamber of Deputies (127 out of 257 seats) and a third of the Senate (24 out of 72 seats). These will be the first midterm elections under the presidency of Javier Millais. They will be seen as a test of confidence in the current government and its large-scale economic reforms aimed at reducing public spending, liberalizing the market and attracting investment.
• According to polls, La Libertad Avanza (Millais' libertarian party) and Unión por la Patria (the former Peronist party) are leading the pack.