The Beginning of a Controversial Relationship: The IMF, the World Bank, and Argentina, 1943–46

Abstract

The few historical studies that have addressed the formative years of the relationship between Argentina and the Bretton Woods Institutions—the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, better known as the World Bank—begin their narratives in the post-Peronist period. However, its roots are found in the pre-Peronist and the pre-IMF era. This article focuses on a specific crucial point for the understanding of the conflictive relations between the sides—the exclusion of Argentina from the foundational event of the IMF, the Bretton Woods Conference of July 1944. The article portrays Argentina's non-invitation to the Bretton Woods Conference by the principal responsible for its organization—Washington, DC—as a link in the chain of diplomatic and economic sanctions that the United States imposed on this neutral country.