Argentina has been working on strategies to ensure it can meet about $9.5 billion in debt payments due next year, President Javier Milei said on Friday when asked whether he expected the US Treasury to come to the rescue of the troubled South American economy.

“Those negotiations take time and and we don’t make announcements until it’s confirmed,” Milei said in an interview with a local TV channel without referencing the US Treasury. “But we are working very hard, we’re very advanced, and it’s a matter of time too.”