Default isn’t the same as bankruptcy. If it were, Argentina wouldn’t have gotten shafted by Paul Singer or had one of its naval vessels seized on a port visit abroad.

I said countries can’t go bankrupt. You said yes they can, and yes, they can default on their debts. I said default and bankruptcy isn’t the same thing, so a.) being in default doesn’t mean you’re in bankruptcy and b.) as far as I know, there’s no bankruptcy regime for sovereign nations (with the possible exception of PROMESA for Puerto Rico if you squint but that’s probably the exception that proves the rule).

I assume I am misunderstanding something you are saying or we are just talking past each other.

> there’s no bankruptcy regime for sovereign nations (with the possible exception of PROMESA for Puerto Rico if you squint but that’s probably the exception that proves the rule).

Puerto Rico is not sovereign (either in the international sense, or even in the more limited US-specific legal sense that US states are), it is a dependent territory of the United States. PROMESA thus is no more, and aeguably less, of an exception than federal Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy (which applies to agencies, instrumentalities, and subdivisions of states, though not to states as a whole.)

Right, the distinction between Puerto Rico’s status …. whatever it is (yeah, yeah, organized unincorporated possession …. whatever that is) and U.S. states led me to surmise that Puerto Rico is actually slightly more sovereign than a U.S. state particularly in the context of insolvency, since it was granted powers that states lack under Title 11, and does have certain features of self-governance that states lack via the feds. But that was an off-the-cuff comment on my part, and I find your argument compelling.