Scott Bessent is facing mounting pressure to justify Washington’s multibillion-dollar rescue of Argentina as a political backlash builds over the Trump administration’s efforts to support President Javier Milei.
The Treasury secretary has taken the lead in managing Donald Trump’s effort to provide financial support for Milei’s libertarian government, which the US sees as a crucial Latin American ally, through a package of measures designed to prop up its economy and its currency, the peso.
But Trump’s moves to help Milei ahead of midterm elections in Argentina this Sunday have attracted criticism from across the political spectrum, including from some of the president’s closest “Maga” allies and Republicans in farm states.