'So Much for America First': Trump Admin Says Argentina Bailout Doubling to $40 Billion
'So Much for America First': Trump Admin Says Argentina Bailout Doubling to $40 Billion | Common Dreams
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/51070777
"Yet, they never have the funds for healthcare coverage for all," said Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib.
I kinda missed part 1 of the story; what's the deal for Trump here?
He wouldn't be doing this if there wasn't something in it for him.
Oh and just in case somebody isn't 100% clear what Milei is about:
While Milei has
drastically slashed inflation, the reduction has come via the devaluation of the peso andmassive cuts in government spending, including the evisceration of social programs resulting in more expensive housing, healthcare, and education.
And Trump doing mafia style threats again:
“If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina,” Trump told reporters. “I think he’s going to win, and if he wins, we’re staying with him, and if he doesn’t win, we’re gone.”
Lawmaker Margarita Stolbizer:
"Trump tells us Argentines that if we don't vote for Milei, we'll be punished," she added. "The interference is absolute, the libertarian surrender is total.
Argentinian government debt is mostly owned by big American investment firms like Black Rock. If their economy crashes, American Oligarchs lose $$$$ so they convinced Trump this is in his best interests.
Yep, that makes sense. It's all about the whisperers behind the dick tater.
i think it was blackstone, and fidelity was one of the major investors.
TBH I don't try to understand Trump, he's a dumbass and everything he touches turns to shit, but hypothetically IF he weren't a concaveman, a moron of the fourth and highest order of dumbfuckery, and instead some other president then the play would be increasing US authority in South America either preemptively or as a direct response to eastern influences like Russia and China. You know. The same shit that's been going on for almost a hundred years, now. It's called a cold war.
But again, I don't think Trump's capable of rational thought.
the play would be increasing US authority in South America either preemptively or as a direct response to eastern influences like Russia and China.
Maybe, if there was a smart big thought in that brain. This will be simpler, as they will just build a building or two, a tower and hotel or something with his name on it. In exchange for $40 bil of other people's money. He doesn't care about strategy or geopolitics, this guy is 100% about the corruption and the personal benefit, the quid pro quo, he's the mob president.
I think that article is not well researched. Devaluing the currency causes inflation (in Argentina's case), not the opposite. In fact, Milei did not sufficiently devalue the peso, because devaluing further would have caused more inflation. It's exactly because he did not sufficiently devalue that the peso is now in crisis.
I don't know about the other ones, but under Milei housing listings have become cheaper, when adjusted for inflation.
And according to salaries?
Im all about Milei. Im all about reducing the size of bloated governments and frivolous spending. Governments love to pay useless people to do useless and many times redundant work. I understanding these are people with jobs and paychecks, and people should be able to have a good job and pay check, but not pointlessly and at the expense of the tax payers.
What do you do? Let me judge how useless you are and how useless your job is.
$40 billion was the entire annual budget of USAID. No matter what you think of them, they did provided essential aid to dozens of nations, and DOGE destroyed them under the pretense of lowering the deficit. Now we're spending that much money just to prop up one countries economy.
(Yes, I know they USAID is a soft-power tool of American imperialism, and is rumored to have been used as cover for CIA operations, but they also did a shit-load of global AIDs prevention work, and I'd rather have spent the $40 billion on that than bailing out a libertarian freak so Rob Citrone can get rich.)
I mean the entire doge "savings" were instantly wiped out by the $200 billion increase in military spending. And I say savings incredibly generously because there are a ton of studies that say the agencies and people they cut will leave a hole in federal capabilities that will end up costing the American people way more than all of the money they claim to have saved (Some speculate the massive cuts to the IRS alone will end up costing about $1 trillion in lost tax collections).
But this combined with the cost of the shutdown and the farmer bailout and so much more is just icing on the cake I guess.
Oh yeah, for sure. Everything DOGE did was a farce, and it almost certainly lost more money than it saved. Even en if it didn't, they blew any savings up on their first budget legislation. I just find it particularly hypocritical to cut $40 billion in global aid because, "we don't have the money," then turn around and spend $40 billion on global aid to a single country
has he even started bailing out the farmers yet? the gop is hoping the Ds come back into the power, so the gop can mess it up next election again. it will be a problem if the gop is still in power and they dont get to blame the Ds anymore.
its not even propping up argetina, its to bailout bassents friends.
Removed by Moderator — Modlog
I don't think it's even, "friends," I think it's just Rob Citrone. It probably doesn't hurt that Melei has kissed Trump's ass, though.
Someone has to pay for the upkeep of all those Nazi summer homes.
The country is totally fucked up when he can just decide to spend 40 Billion on a whim.
I guess I know where his next villa will be once his term is over
He'll fit right in.
Going by history he's emulating, the last moments of his term will be spent in a bunker with the Allies rapidly closing in.
Thats 2.6 million dollars for every school district in the United States.
Education isn't good for getting Republican votes
So how much would it cost to give American's healthcare?
Health care somewhat pays for itself. Not the really sick people, but making sure workers are healthy to actually work properly has a massive return on investment.
The other part is taking care of general health. Things like cars, bad food, all sorts of pollution and so forth really are bad for health. If you have public health care it is often cheaper to fix the underlying issue then to treat the problems coming from it.
0, USA has no interest in giving people free or extremely subsidized healthcare, they lose thier political wedge issues, trump card for both sides. the DNC can say they would to wet thier appetite, and the GOP can say they are against it, because of this or that is not effective. and also REPUBLICAN recepients make up a large percentage of medicaid, snap benefits too.
I know a Trump supporting single father, who as someone it is absolutely meant for, uses SNAP benefits. And then turns around and says it shouldn't exist and votes for Trump. The people are all dumb, government will hang their carrots and nothing will change weeee
Making Argentina Great Again
So that's what the A stood for!
Condor screeching
Argentina, Israel and Qatar first.
First of course, it's disrespectful to make insinuations to a sovereign country about whom they may vote into office.
Secondly, Trump doesn't have authority to give loans.
He's probably trying to deceive Argentinian voters with false hope of generous loans (which have to be paid back, I should note).
However, in the US, financial decisions are made by Congress. Certainly on the scale of tens of billons. The president has discretion to move far smaller sums.
This guy over here talking about what trump is allowed to do like he don't do whatever the fuck he feels like already.
You are correct AND congress won't do anything about if he does it anyway.
This is going to end up with the US defaulting, isn't it?
#NOKINGS 10/18/25 - Find your local protest: https://www.nokings.org/#map
What a fucking dumb asshole
Argentina is kicking back to the Trumps.
For 40B, I could probably build a big enough carbon sink to fix global warming.
Americans get the government they deserve (and voted for) 🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🐆🖕🇺🇸
Removed by Moderator — Modlog
Right, that will be the Democrat that has to come in and clean up the rubble and try to rebuild.
And they will never be forgiven for it.
Removed by Moderator — Modlog
Out of curiosity, what does this do to the USD? I know it is a "small" amount relative to our country, but if they are swapping $40b in U.S. Dollars for a currency of high volatility, isnt it a guaranteed loss of believed stability in those USD up to that amount?
Soft power I guess? Maybe strings to dump us agricultural produce that is losing their market due to taco shenanigans.
Actually thanks to US money, Argentina was able to support its farmers by lower export tariffs for soy beans. They then sold a hell of a lot of those to China. Soy beans used to be the biggest US export to China.....
Lol soft power.
Oh you mean like all of the soft power that we built up over the past 80 years and has been completely wiped in the past 10 months?
Soft power like that?
This will fail. Argentina is a habitual financial crisis center. And they will spend only more money to prop them up.
bessenet friends made bad investments in argentina so they asked to be bailed out, but they cant do it in the form of a real bailout, but hide as guise, under AID to argentina, which is really to bailout his friends.
I was more under the opinion that he was setting up an escape plan just like the Nazis.
Double or nothing. Trump firmly believes in the Martingale strategy. It's part of the art of the deal.
Maybe Trump should buy Islas Malvinas from Argentina.
Maybe trump should lock himself in a shipping container and drop it into the Marianas Trench.
But Agentina now has.
America is paying for Argentina's Universal Healthcare, without having their own.
The art of the deal, or something.
I guess Argentina read his book
Same for Israel
Something something best deal maker. Tremendous greatly.
Can I now get my healthcare from Argentina? Please?
Millei is killing public healthcare, pushing to a US style system, with US medical corporations.
No wonder Trump likes him. He's an asshole.
Like they said, MAGA.
I wonder what the US could do with $40 billion? By the way, that's nearly $300 per taxpayer.
That'd pay for a lot of people's dental care
Probably quite a few missles to murder people on boats from Venezuala