How the Trump administration learned to love foreign aid

Illustration: Fortunate Joaquin

Oct 2nd 2025|Washington, DC|6 min read

Nobody expected President Donald Trump to save a country from financial crisis. Yet on October 14th he will meet Javier Milei, Argentina’s president and an ideological ally, to discuss the details of a rescue package. America has already promised Argentina a swap line worth $20bn—an amount representing half the South American country’s foreign reserves—in order to address investors’ fears about the durability of Mr Milei’s currency reforms, which had sent the peso tumbling. Treasury officials are also considering a raid on the Exchange Stabilisation Fund, a stash of dollars that was last used to assist a foreign country in 2002.