Who is Rodrigo Valdés, the IMF director who leaves negotiations with Argentina after a harsh accusation from Milei

The news can read as a nod to Javier Mieli: Rodrigo Valdés, the IMF official whom the President had harshly questioned, has withdrawn from the negotiations with Argentina. A doctor in economics and former minister of Michelle Bachelet in Chile, he is the director of the Fund who angered Milei and today he stopped supervising the conversations with the country.

Valdes He took office at the IMF on May 1, 2023 replacing Brazilian Ilan Goldfajn, who left the Fund to run for President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). He is the second Chilean to assume that position which has responsibility for more than 30 countries in the region, following the administration of Nicolás Eyzaguirre in 2008.

It has a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a degree in Economics from the University of Chile

Before arriving at this position, fHe was Chile’s Minister of Economy from 2015 to 2017 during Michelle Bachelet’s government. It was not his only stint in public life: he worked for 16 years in that sector at the Ministry of Finance and at the Central Bank, where he was Research Director and Chief Economist.

He also has experience in the banking sector: at BTG Pactual he headed the macroeconomic research team for Latin America, excluding Brazil, and was Chairman of the Board and Executive Committee of Banco Estado, the only state-owned bank in Chile. He also worked at Barclays Capital in New York as Director and Chief Economist for Latin America.

When he was announced as head of the IMF, the IMF noted that Valdés is a prolific author whose economic research has been published in international journals and books. Among the numerous awards he has received is the “Most Influential Economist of the Year” from Chile’s leading newspapers.

Milei questioned Valdés in June and He accused him of allowing the Central Bank’s debt to increase exponentially. during the previous administration. “We are talking about four points of GDP. And it is not only the responsibility of the previous government but also of an IMF technician who turned a blind eye to this, one with ties to the Sao Paulo Forum,” he said.

The allusion to the Sao Paulo Forum is due to Valdés’ time in the Bachelet administration, where he participated in that space critical of neoliberalism.

On Thursday, the Fund announced that Valdés had “fully delegated the negotiations of the program,” which will now be directly supervised by management.