An update to today’s Morning Jolt: In addition to the U.S. government purchasing $20 billion in Argentinian pesos, Treasury Secretary Bessent announced Wednesday that the administration is marshaling an additional $20 billion from banks and sovereign wealth funds to help Argentina make its foreign debt payments.

In today’s newsletter I tried to lay out the justification for this U.S. bailout of Argentina in an even-handed manner. I think there are some compelling reasons for the U.S. to not want to see either a collapsed Argentine economy or for the country to get bailed out by the Chinese and become a de facto client state of Beijing.

But . . . wouldn’t it be nice to get the legislative branch to sign on to these moves to save the Argentinian economy (and with it, the hopes of Javier Milei’s party in Argentina’s midterm elections and his economic agenda)?

I know that earlier this year, the U.S. government abolished the legislative branch of the federal government . . . (checks notes). Oh, pardon me, we still have a U.S. House and Senate; they’re just quiet about a whole lot of decisions made by the executive branch. I realize they still have that little thing called the government shutdown to resolve, but once the House is back in session next week, maybe Congress should weigh in on our purchase of all those Argentinian pesos?