Consider the following code:

fn main() {
    let foo = 1;
    let bar: i32 = -&foo; //ok, -1
    let baz: i32 = &foo;  //error, expected `i32`, found `&{integer}`
    let bad: i32 = !&foo; //ok, -2
}

Playground

Reading through the Rust Reference I found that

Possible coercion sites are:

• let statements where an explicit type is given.

[…]

• Arguments for function calls

So let baz: i32 = &foo; should also work since it’s a let statement with an explicit type given.

Why does it refuse to be compiled?