Alberto Fernández resumes his agenda with Joe Biden's envoy: he will ask for more vaccines for Argentina

Natasha Niebieskikwiat

04/12/2021 12:17 PM

• Clarín.com

• Politics

Updated 04/12/2021 3:32 PM

President

Alberto Fernández

will resume his face-to-face agenda this Tuesday the 13th at the Olivos Residence.

It will be his first public activity

after having tested positive for Covid 19

, as he himself announced on Friday, April 2.

The president

will receive Joe Biden's envoy to Argentina, Juan González.

He is the Special Assistant to the President of the United States and Principal Director of the National Security Council for the Western Hemisphere.

He is a very high-level figure who directly advises the US president,

whom Alberto Fernández seeks to visit as soon as possible this year, at the White House.

But also, according to Clarín from very high sources, in his agenda with Gonzalez, Alberto F. seeks to install a request to the Biden government for the United States to sell vaccines against Covid 19 to Argentina.

That channel of eventual negotiations was opened a few days ago by Foreign Minister Felipe Solá in his telephone conversation with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The idea of ​​the Argentines is that Biden authorize the exports, now prohibited, of a consignment of AstraZeneca that are in the United States, and that are not yet approved by the Food Drug Administration and that are not being used in that country either.

They seek from here

that this negotiation is under a scheme similar to the one that Washington already had with Mexico and Canada, with which it obviously has strategic interests

.

Washington will give Mexico 2.5 million doses and Canada 1.5 million of those AstraZeneca's it is not using.

Due to differences and controversy with Pfizer, and delays in government negotiations with Moderna and Jansen, Argentina does not have contracts with US vaccines.

A subject of intense sensitivity in the relationship with Washington is that

of the situation and the future of Venezuela

.

Biden, like Donald Trump did, pressures Chavismo and recognizes opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president.

The Kirchnerist government recognizes Nicolás Maduro, and questions only under certain parameters only within the scope of the United Nations, and unlike Washington, it wants a political transition with Chavismo included.

But the government

has just played a favorable card by making a discreet rapprochement between the administration of Biden and that of Luis Arce, in Bolivia.

Another sensitive issue is the growing presence in this country of China and Russia.

Last week, during his visit to Buenos Aires and Ushuaia, the head of the powerful Southern Command of the Defense Department, Craig Faller,

told DEF magazine

that "Russia routinely sows lies and disinformation"

when asked about the vaccine diplomacy, for example with Sputnik V. And about China, Faller told Mario Montoto's influential Security and Defense magazine that the Asian country

"has a fleet sponsored by the state itself and is involved in this type of illegal, unreported and unregulated activities. "

The admiral spoke of his country's interest in doing joint exercises in the South Atlantic.

Republicans and Democrats always expressed their misgivings about the lunar base that China built in the province of Neuquén through an agreement with Cristina Kirchner.

These are central issues in the Kirchner administration's relationship with the Democrats.  

González, who will arrive in the country accompanied by Julie Chung - Acting Undersecretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs of the State Department -

has lunch with the President and Foreign Minister Felipe Solá on his agenda

;

another meeting with Solá in the afternoon, and a meeting with businessmen.

To this could be added more activities, since he will finally be here Tuesday and part of Wednesday, before traveling to Uruguay.

Regarding Argentina, Biden's intention is to know first-hand, through González, if he can consider our country an ally (or not).

He is concerned, among other things, by the government's positions in favor of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and the relationship with China.

The

Presidency confirmed to Clarín

that they expected this Monday the presidential medical unit to discharge Alberto F., who only appeared in images in the

recorded message

he made last Thursday to announce the new restrictions to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

He also gave

some radio and television interviews

but without a live image.

Since April 2, Malvinas Veteran's Day -and at the same time his birthday-, he has been isolated in the Olivos Guest House.

Fernández was infected with the virus

even after receiving two doses of the Sputnik V vaccine

.