A currency exchange house in the financial district of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on September 23, 2025. Photo: VCG

The US government has pressed Argentina to cancel its currency swap arrangement with China, offering a US loan as a possible replacement, local newspaper Clarin reported. Chinese experts said that the pressure will hurt Argentina's interests and stressed the need for eliminating US political interferences on other countries' normal economic cooperation.

China's central bank in June 2023 said that it has renewed a bilateral currency swap agreement with the Central Bank of Argentina. The deal has a scale of 130 billion yuan ($18.28 billion), or 4.5 trillion Argentine peso. It will be valid for three years, according to the People's Bank of China, Xinhua News Agency reported. A currency swap sees two parties agree to exchange a certain amount of foreign currency at a pre-determined rate, providing protecting against fluctuations.

Argentina's Central Bank in April has renewed a $5 billion portion of the currency swap it has with its Chinese counterpart for a year, according to media reports.

The US views any long-term economic ties with China as a risk of its partners and allies - such as Argentina - and the US doesn't like the yuan being used as a currency for trade. One option under consideration is that a US Treasury loan could replace it according to Clarin.

China's potential leverage through the swap could challenge the global dominance of the US dollar, which is why the US government resists it, the report said.

The US demand was made in meetings between the two delegations in New York during a week of diplomacy at the United Nations General Assembly. Senior US officials said that Washington expected Buenos Aires to reduce reliance on Chinese credit lines, according to a media report.

Seeking financial aid from the US is "bread for today and hunger for tomorrow," former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said in a post on social media X on Thursday.

Chinese experts rejected what they described as unreasonable US pressure on normal China-Argentina financial cooperation. 

Dong Shaopeng, a senior research fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Friday that China and Argentina's currency swap agreement is a normal financial cooperation, and US pressure on Argentina to end the deal is unacceptable and risks undermining the Argentina's interests by restricting its options for cooperation with other countries, including China.

He Weiwen, senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, said the US has a history of attaching conditions to aid that serve its own interests. He argued that pressuring Argentina to end the swap agreement "may appear to be a financial condition, but in essence it represents political interference in normal economic cooperation."

Despite the geographical distance, China and Argentina have built decades of mutually beneficial trade ties, with Argentina exporting beef and agricultural goods while importing Chinese industrial products, He noted. 

Experts said that the US' unreasonable demand for Argentina to end the currency swap deal is unlikely to significantly harm China, but could weigh heavily on Argentina's economy if it is forced to reduce cooperation with China.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian noted in April that China has all along conducted practical cooperation with Argentina in various fields on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. For a long time, Argentina's currency swap with China has played an important role in stabilizing its economy and finance, which is welcomed and well received in Argentina. China's bilateral cooperation with relevant countries never targets any third party, nor should it be interfered by any third party. Fair-minded people are able to tell who is extorting and coercing others and making trouble.

Global Times