Stiglitz warns Argentina is on the brink of another crisis

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz warned that Argentina is "on the brink of another crisis" due to its heavy debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the largest globally.
 
The economist made the remark while providing an economic analysis during his participation in the Gabo Festival in Colombia over the weekend, from which Argentine media reported.

Stiglitz remembered that during the mandate of former President Mauricio Macri (2017-2020), he resorted to the IMF to finance an economic opening and obtained loans for more than 44 billion dollars, money that the IMF itself authorized to be withdrawn from the country.

He stated, “The richest people took the money out without any evidence of what they did.”

Along those lines, and with the same Economy Minister (Luis Caputo), President Javier Milei is now “exaggerating and aggravating the problem,” as Argentina “could not pay the 44 billion dollar loan (from 2018) and now the IMF is lending them other 20 billion dollars that they will not be capable of paying either.”

About this issue, he added that inflation has dropped thanks to using these new dollars from the Fund. “You can say, ‘Look, inflation in Argentina did drop.’ Of course, it dropped because they used these 20 billion dollars to maintain the exchange rate,” he asserted.

Argentina currently tops the list of the 10 countries that owe the IMF the most, with a balance of 63.98 billion dollars, according to data from that credit institution as of March 31, well ahead of second-place Ukraine with 14.99 billion dollars and Egypt, third, with 11.90 billion dollars.