00:00Overall, U.S. banks seem to be in pretty good shape. The same, it looks like, cannot be said of President Mille of Argentina and his peso.
00:07As we've seen now, Secretary of Treasurer Besant first create a swap arrangement of $20 billion and then actually intervene in the currency markets last week.
00:17You actually were there during the Mexican peso crisis back in 1994. What can you tell us about when that makes sense and when it does not?
00:27I'm somebody who's a strong believer that the United States has to support global financial stability, that when countries face crises involving a sudden loss of liquidity, that there needs often to be an active response and that the United States should take a leadership role in such responses.
00:52That's what I was proud to have done during my time at the Treasury with respect to Mexico, with respect to countries in Asia, with respect to Brazil.
01:03So I don't think we're in a position to reach any kind of blanket or definitive judgment on what the administration has done here.
01:14I do think that the approach taken so far is new and unconventional in three aspects.
01:25First, the United States is going it alone.
01:30Usually and historically, the United States has wanted to share the burden, share the taking of risk, share the responsibility with other countries.
01:40In general, the Trump administration, take the defense area, has been the strongest advocate for other countries bearing a share of burdens.
01:51Yet in this case, the United States is going it completely alone, providing all the funds itself, not seeking to involve the IMF, not seeking to ask other countries.
02:04Maybe that will turn out to have been a good decision because it will have been a profitable investment or because we will reap some substantial political benefit.
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