Minister of Finance Sergio de Castro, departing from Friedman's support for free floating exchange rates, decided on a pegged exchange rate of 39 pesos per dollar in June 1979, under the rationale of bringing Chile's rampant inflation to heel. The result, however, was that a serious balance-of-trade problem arose,[16] leading Milton Friedman to criticize De Castro and the fixed exchange rate in his Memoirs ("Chapter 24: Chile", 1998).[17] Since Chilean peso inflation continued to outpace U.S. dollar inflation, every year Chilean buying power of foreign goods increased.