...- The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated Argentina's already stressed fiscal needs and resources, leading the administration of President Alberto Fernandez to reconfigure its financial planning and budgetary priorities. - On April 6, it differentiated treatment of Argentine-law foreign currency bonds from that of foreign-law foreign currency bonds and postponed payment of principal and interest on this debt through December 2020, or a potentially earlier date, as decided by the ministry of finance. - This constitutes a default under our distressed exchange criteria, and we are lowering our long- and short-term foreign currency sovereign credit ratings on Argentina to '##/##' from '###-/C'. - There is no outlook on the '##' foreign and local currency long-term sovereign credit ratings (the latter were lowered to '##' on Jan. 21, 2020), but we could raise the ratings following the presentation of a comprehensive restructuring of Argentina's foreign-law foreign currency commercial debt, currently...
