Blinken, after his visit to Miley: “Argentina can count on us to stabilize its economy”

The President of Argentina, Javier Mille, received the Secretary of State of the United States, Anthony Blinken, in Buenos Aires this Friday to “deepen relations” and “increase trade” between the two countries, as the latter highlighted in a press conference. Casa Rosada. The visit by the head of US diplomacy, Democrat Gov. Joe Biden, who arrived in Argentina after the G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Brazil, came hours before Miley flew to Washington to attend the Conservative Action Conference. Policy, the great seat of the American radical right, will include former President Donald Trump.

Neither Blinken nor the Argentine government made public reference to the coincidence until questioned by an American correspondent. “I can’t talk about their future meetings, that depends on President Millie, I can only talk about ours, which has been very productive,” Blinken said. Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino has not confirmed that Milli will meet with Trump in Washington, but the two will be together and speak at the forum on Saturday. Milli, who has not appeared publicly since the meeting, told the press gathered at the Casa Rosada that “Argentina has decided to return to the side of the West, to the side of progress, to the side of democracy and above all, to the side of freedom.” That was the tone of the subsequent conference given by Blinken and Mondino.

Mondino detailed that the Argentine government hopes the two countries can “demonstrate shared values, fundamentally democracy and freedom.” Blinken has maintained this line, thanking the right-wing Mileni government for “strongly condemning” the Hamas attack on Israel last October, its commitment as a regional partner to guarantee Ukraine’s security after the Russian invasion in January. 2022, and as a reference in the Organization of American States (OAS) to “defend democratic values” against the authoritarian regimes governing Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

“Argentinians can count on us as they stabilize their economy,” Blinken said, “Perhaps most importantly, Argentina has what the world really needs, and we want to be its partner because it feeds the world and Provides energy.” . Regarding Argentina’s intention to dollarize the economy, the grand plan Miley promoted to curb inflation that reached 254% year-on-year in January, Blinken said he would wait to “hear any plan” in this regard, but he did. Don’t want to evaluate it. The Secretary of State has said it is “a decision that depends on Argentina.”

Milli’s agenda between the IMF and Donald Trump

On Thursday, Mille received the International Monetary Fund’s number two, Gita Gopinath, who celebrated the new Argentine government’s “significant efforts” to “restore macroeconomic stability.” Gopinath spent two days in Buenos Aires where he met Economy Minister Luis Caputo and Central Bank officials. According to a press release issued by the IMF on Thursday night, her visit was “excellent”, but the fund’s deputy managing director stressed that the Milli government “needs to work pragmatically to gain social and political support” for the sustainability and effectiveness of the reforms.

It was not the first time that the Fund asked Millen to be open to negotiations with the rest of Argentina’s political arc. At the end of January, after the government reactivated a payment plan in which Peronism agreed to return in 2022 the 44,000 million that the IMF had given Mauricio Macri’s government in 2018, the Fund also celebrated the economic adjustment, but asked Millen to back down. Agree on his economic plan in Congress, which in those days was debating the great scrapping legislation the President introduced early in his term. The law collapsed, leaving Miley without emergency legislative powers or nearly 400 reforms that included the sale of nearly 40 state companies, but the arrangement continued.

After a devaluation that triggered inflation to 25% in December alone and 20% in January, the Miley government ended its first full month with a fiscal surplus, the largest seen by an Argentine government in more than a decade. It was achieved after cuts in pensions, social assistance and subsidies, while the country began to see tension on the streets. This week, the Observatory of the Catholic University of Argentina calculated that poverty rose from 49.5% in December to 57.4% in January. There are about 27 million poor people in the country of 46 million inhabitants, the worst figure since the 2002 crisis. The IMF responded to the escalating conflict in the streets of Buenos Aires. “Given the short-term stabilization costs, continued efforts are needed to support vulnerable sections of the population and maintain the real value of social assistance and pensions,” he asked Mille in his statement.

After her meeting with one of Biden’s strongest officials this Friday, Miley will travel to the United States, where on Saturday she will be one of the highlights of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the great gathering of American ultra-conservatives. These days began with a visit to the president of Salvador, Naib Buquel, and tomorrow his main route will be Milli, the leader of the Spanish extreme right, Santiago Abascal and its biggest star: the former US president Donald Trump.

Subscribe to the EL PAÍS Americas newsletter here and get all the key information on current events in the region.