The US Treasury has intervened in Argentina’s currency market for the first time, as the Trump administration tries to help its ally President Javier Milei contain a run on the peso.
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said the institution had “directly purchased Argentine pesos” on Thursday to boost the currency, after Argentine authorities rapidly burnt through their own reserves in recent weeks. Since 1996, the US has only intervened in currency markets three times prior to Thursday’s move, according to the New York Fed.
The highly unusual US intervention comes as Milei, President Donald Trump’s most important ideological partner in Latin America, battles a crisis of confidence ahead of midterm elections on October 26.