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Argentina’s boldest move yet to sidestep a United States court ruling that sent the country into default last month has left investors scratching their heads.

The government moved on Wednesday to push legislation through its Congress that would give foreign investors in the country’s debt the ability to swap their defaulted bonds for new ones subject to local law, thus skirting a United States court order that has blocked its ability to make bond payments.

“It’s not an obligatory change of jurisdiction but a method for Argentina to keep repaying its debt,” Axel Kicillof, Argentina’s economy minister, said in a news conference in Buenos Aires on Wednesday. “It’s a change in the place where payment is collected.”

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But the draft of the legislation, which was first announced on national television late Tuesday by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina’s president, has raised more questions than answers among investors who are looking for a solution to the country’s debt predicament.

“It seems that given the legal barriers to do this, the deal is a nonstarter,” said Hans Humes, the chief executive and chairman of Greylock Capital Management, which holds Argentine debt.

The country has arrived at an impasse. It is fighting a court order by Judge Thomas P. Griesa of the Federal District Court in Manhattan that prevents the government from making payments to bondholders until it reaches a deal with a group of hedge funds that is demanding more than $1.5 billion in payments on bonds that the country defaulted on in 2001.

Most investors who held bonds in 2001 have since participated in two debt restructurings, exchanging their defaulted bonds for new, discounted ones. But the group of hedge funds, led by a unit of Paul E. Singer’s Elliott Management, owns bonds that were never included in the exchange and took Argentina to court in an attempt to be paid full value for them, gaining the name “holdouts.” Judge Griesa also ruled that banks handling bond payments could not pass Argentina’s money to the exchange bondholders without also paying the hedge funds.

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Argentina has refused to pay the holdouts, calling them vultures whose actions are akin to extortion, comments that were repeated by Mr. Kicillof on Wednesday. Both sides failed to reach a court-mediated settlement last month, and on July 30, Argentina slipped into default after a $539 million interest payment to other bondholders was blocked.

On Wednesday, Mr. Kicillof said the government would extend the option to swap the original bonds for those to be issued under Argentine law to its holdout investors who did not participate in previous debt restructurings.

“Mr. Singer can come here and show up at the counter and receive payment, obtaining a 300 percent profit,” Mr. Kicillof said. But, he added, “that isn’t enough for Mr. Singer because he’s a vulture.”

A spokesman for Elliott Management declined to comment. A spokesman for Aurelius Capital Management, another hedge fund investor, issued a statement that called Argentina’s leaders “outlaws.”

“They have chronically flouted U.S. court orders, lied to our courts and proclaimed utter disdain for our courts,” the statement said.

Since the country’s default last month, officials have been defiant, denying that it is in default. The government has published ads in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal that call the judge’s ruling “erroneous and improper” and filed a suit against the United States in the International Court of Justice, contending that Judge Griesa’s ruling violated its sovereignty.

Argentina now faces the prospect of being held in contempt of court. It also faces obstacles that could make the switch to resolving the issue under Argentine laws difficult.

Under the proposed legislation, Argentina would replace the bondholders’ current trustee, the Bank of New York Mellon, with a unit of the state-owned Banco de la Nación. This would allow Argentina to sidestep the United States court and continue to make its interest payments. But for that to take effect, the bondholders would have to vote to change the trustee of the bonds. They would also have to vote to change the terms of the original bond, which required the trustee to have an office in New York.

It remains unclear what will happen to the $539 million interest payment Argentina made to a Bank of New York Mellon account that Judge Griesa blocked last month.

Several hedge fund managers who hold exchange bonds expressed uncertainty about whether they would consider any kind of a bond swap.

“The workaround proposal has been discussed among market participants for over a year and the feedback from investors has been extremely cautious to this strategy,” Siobhan Morden, head of Latin American strategy at Jefferies, wrote in a note to investors. The concern is that these bondholders could face their own legal risks by violating the New York court order.

In addition, some of the institutional investors that hold exchange bonds are bound by mandates from their investors that restrict them from buying bonds in other jurisdictions outside of the United States.

While Ms. Kirchner is poised to face some political opposition to the legislation, it is still expected to pass. The bill was sent to the upper house of Argentina’s Congress on Tuesday night. It will then go to the larger lower house. Ms. Kirchner’s ruling party, the Front for Victory, has a majority in both houses, although the loyalty of some lawmakers in the lower house has been called into doubt in recent days.

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Calling on her fellow politicians to support the bill, Ms. Kirchner said in a teary speech on Tuesday night that she was “a bit nervous,” adding, “I normally have more composure, but I feel we’re experiencing a huge injustice against Argentina.”

Other politicians were not so sympathetic.

“Following failure after failure, now they will go to Congress,” Margarita Stolbizer, a lawmaker in the lower house, wrote on Twitter. “It’s madness.”

Mauricio Macri, the mayor of Buenos Aires, who leads an opposition center-right party, which has a small number of seats in the upper and lower houses, said its lawmakers would vote against the bill. “This is not the path,” said Mr. Macri, a longtime rival of Ms. Kirchner. “This distances us from the world.”