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Business, lobby and good harmony: the relationship of Joe Biden's family with Argentina

2020-08-24T13:34:34.595Z


While the relationship of the Democratic presidential candidate with the country focused on politics, his brother James and his son Hunter had financial interests in the country. Who they know.


Natasha Niebieskikwiat

08/24/2020 - 10:15

  • Clarín.com
  • Politics

Argentines who traveled to the International Monetary Fund meeting last year, later passed through New York, where businessmen linked to the Democrats had invited them to a meeting in Harlem with the cream that had been part of the Barack Obama government: among them was who had been his vice, Joseph Biden, and today is the candidate to abort the re-election of Donald Trump.

One of those Argentines who was in New York is the current president of YPF, Guillermo Nielsen, who was then astonished by Biden's meticulous knowledge of Argentina , its economic problems and the long drag on foreign debt. He was a senator between 1973 and 2009, specialized in international affairs, but in different ways, he, in politics, and his brother James, in business, have been linked to Argentina. 

The relationship with the Kirchners had a peak and a decline. It was the year 2004, and at the Democratic convention in Boston, then-Senator Biden and then-Senator Cristina Kirchner chatted at ease. By then, Biden was speaking harshly of governments averse to the United States like Venezuela. And Cristina Kirchner stated that her husband, Nestor Kirchner "was not" a government of "default" and that they had made "important advances" in judicial matters. Some time later they would both meet again, in power.

President Cristina Kirchner and North American Vice President Joe Biden shake hands last night in Santiago de Chile, in 2014

When Obama and Biden were already Government, the situation was different. In parallel to the irreproachable concentration on the politics of Joe Biden, his brother James Biden, and his son Hunter, have economic interests in Argentina, as lobbyists for Paradigm Global Advisors, according to the Politico.com site, which Clarín was also able to corroborate with local sources. Hunter was the target of Trump's attack during the scandal over the US president's claim to his Ukrainian colleague to investigate his interests in the gas sector there.  

It was the year 2011-2012, and this newspaper also learned that the Bidens had approached the Gramercy fund, one of the country's creditors. Those who were linked to the negotiations at that time said that there was a double situation, which in the United States is not taboo. On the one hand, that, as lobbyists, the Bidens would also try to bring their government closer to that of Cristina Kirchner, who already had important political problems with Barack Obama: the pact with Iran, the alliance with Chavismo, the seizure of military equipment to a Pentagon plane, and the ideological way in which the fight with the vulture funds derived.  

The candidate for president of the United States together with the president of YPF, Guillermo Nielsen. Photo taken in New York in 2019

James Biden was then very close to the media and oil businessman, José Luis Manzano. The former interior minister lived and did good business in Washington. James Biden came to his wedding in Tupungato in February 2015, according to the Mendoza press. And it is also known that he established very good ties with the current president of the Chamber of Deputies, Sergio Massa. 

At a time when questions arise if, due to Biden's harmony with Latin America - remarkable how the influence of Dominican, Venezuelan, Ecuadorian, Peruvian communities, and the ever-present Cuban and Mexican communities grew in the United States - it is worth wondering if the links of the Biden family with Argentina they will or will not favor the relationship with this country if the Biden-Kamala Harris formula were to win the presidential elections of the United States next November.

It is no small task. Today's ambassador to Washington, Jorge Argüello,  was in that same position under Cristina's administration and made good ties with the Democrats as well as with the Republicans, then also with Biden. And President Alberto Fernández himself spoke at length and several times with Dan Restrepo, who was director for Western Hemisphere Affairs of Obama's National Security Council. And with him they exchanged the tensions that grew under the Cristina government, which Alberto knows to the letter, and who at the time, away from Cristina, even spoke with this chronicler. 

In the United States, there may be more or better harmony between one government and another, but there are issues that are state policy. Even in some matters such as the presidency of the Inter-American Bank, which Alberto F. now disputes with Trump, in Biden's team they have slipped that they question the person of Mauricio Claver-Carone not because of his merits but because he is a candidate that divides to the region. But at the same time, they don't seem unhappy that the IDB has a US-imposed headline.

On the other hand, as recalled in that 2016 Davos forum, in which Mauricio Macri and his international adviser Fulvio Pompeo embraced Biden, some time later, Obama and the leader of Together for Change would establish a relationship of even friendly characteristics. , by age and tuning. 

A not minor aspect of the relationship between Biden and Argentina is that between Jill Biden, the wife of the presidential candidate. In 2016, being second second lady, she made an unknown trip to Buenos Aires. She had been invited by Gabriel Sanchez Zinny, who replaced Alejandro Finocchiaro as Director General of Culture and Education of the Province of Buenos Aires, when the former took over the Ministry of Education.

Sánchez Zinny, who lived in Washington for many years, is another of the Argentines who continues to be in contact with the Bidens, even since the days when Diego Guelar, ambassador to the United States, organized large social gatherings at the Argentine headquarters. It was the nineties, another time, another Argentina, and another the relationship with the United States.

Source: clarin

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