The White House is lining up $40 billion to help Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, stabilize his country’s finances ahead of midterm elections on Oct. 26. There’s a plausible case for intervention. Collapsing confidence and a familiar combination of peso crisis and inflation don’t just threaten Milei’s fiscal reforms: If the economy crashes, the damage is sure to spread. Unfortunately, Washington’s approach could prove to be self-defeating.

Milei entered office in 2023 promising to restore fiscal discipline and free up the economy. To almost everybody’s surprise, he delivered — mostly. He slashed out-of-control public spending and stopped printing money to finance deficits. As a result, inflation fell sharply.

Yet he failed to confront Argentina’s chronic peso problem. During his camp

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