Your Evening Briefing: Argentina Finally Hits the Panic Button

Argentina finally hit the panic button. After years of trying to avoid a currency devaluation that would add to soaring inflation and reduce its popularity with voters, the government conceded defeat in that fight on Monday. The move was an admission by President Alberto Fernandez that his administration had run out of options—and money—to defend an unsustainable exchange rate after suffering a stinging defeat in a crucial primary election on Sunday. The 18% devaluation takes the official peso rate to 350 per US dollar (compared to 287 on Friday) and comes with another huge hike in the central bank’s key interest rate. It was raised 21 percentage points to 118%.

Russia’s central bank called an extraordinary meeting Tuesday after the ruble crashed through the level of 100 to the dollar for the first time since March of 2022, shortly after Vladimir Putin launched his war on Ukraine.