Argentina’s Good Behavior Won’t Deliver It From Economic Pain
Constructive debt talks are just a prelude to hard policy choices.
Vultures aren’t the problem.
Photographer: Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images
As another debt deadline came and went this week, Argentina found itself in a familiar place: immersed in recession, beholden to the International Monetary Fund and at cross purposes with private lenders. If the coronavirus pandemic has bought Argentina some international indulgence, as the IMF made clear in a statement on June 1, it hasn’t eased the country’s burden or lifted uncertainty.
Argentina surely deserves debt relief, but also a credible way forward. Borrower and creditors alike reckon that a deal will emerge; they have been inching closer for weeks. Yet the country still needs a path to growth, new investment and the prospect of fiscal reasonableness beyond the pandemic. And that is where the road map ends.