Debt Is Job One for the New Argentine Leader

There was no mystery about the top item on newly elected Argentine President Mauricio Macri's to-do list as he prepared to take office on December 10: make peace with the nation's disgruntle creditors. Macri, the center-right former mayor of Buenos Aires, won the presidency on November 22, pledging to revive South America's second-biggest economy. Argentina defaulted on $95 billion in foreign debt at the end of 2001. After talks with creditors stalled, the nation faced lawsuits from bondholders seeking payment in federal court in New York, where a clause in the bond contracts allowed most of them to sue. For Macri, the political hurdle may be the most difficult one. He'll need Congress, where his party is in the minority, to repeal the law prohibiting officials from giving the holdouts better terms than were offered in the 2005 and 2010 debt swaps.