On the streets of Buenos Aires, money changers known as"arbolitos" or"little trees" are taking advantage of Argentina's capital controls to take a slice of a booming black market trade in U.S. dollars.
Argentina's boom-and-bust economy has suffered from high levels of inflation and a weakening peso for years, which has spurred savers to snap up dollars. The new Peronist government, which took over in December, is racing to restructure around US$100 billion in debt payments to avoid a damaging sovereign default.
Under Macri's government, the official and black market price of dollars had been largely in step. But since the controls came in the two rates have diverged, with the black market rate now around 30per cent higher - a gap not seen since the end of the last Peronist government in 2015. The primary result - and the market crash that followed - helped to push the country further towards an economic crisis and made Macri the underdog in an election that most had thought would be close.
"Having these restrictions, people have no choice but to come and buy," she said. Her group of arbolitos had grown from 3 people to 10.
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