The Argentine president, Javier Milei, received this Friday in Buenos Aires the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, to “deepen ties” and “increase trade” between both countries, as highlighted by the latter in a conference of press at the Casa Rosada.
The visit of the head of US diplomacy, a key official of the Government of Democrat Joe Biden who arrived in Argentina after the meeting of the G-20 foreign ministers in Brazil, occurred hours before Milei traveled to Washington to participate in the Conference Conservative Action Policy, the great meeting of the American radical right, which will feature former President Donald Trump.
Neither Blinken nor the Argentine government made public reference to the coincidence until a question came from an American correspondent.
“I can't talk about their future meetings, that depends on President Milei, I can only talk about ours, which has been very productive,” Blinken said.
Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino has not confirmed that Milei will meet with Trump in Washington, but both will coincide and speak at the forum on Saturday.
Milei, who has not appeared in public after the meeting, told the press gathered at 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 has elaborated that the Argentine Government hopes that both countries “can demonstrate shared values, basically democracy and freedom.”
Blinken has maintained this line, and has thanked the government of the far-right Milei for its “strong denunciation” of the Hamas attack on Israel last October, its commitment as a regional partner to guarantee the security of Ukraine 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 that govern Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
“The Argentine people 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 as it feeds and provides energy.” to the world".
Regarding Argentina's intention to dollarize the economy, the great plan that Milei promotes to stop inflation that in January reached 254% year-on-year, Blinken has stated that he will wait to "listen to any plan" in this regard, but he did not want to evaluate it.
The Secretary of State has stated that it is “a decision that depends on Argentina.”
Milei's agenda, between the IMF and Donald Trump
On Thursday, Milei received the number two of the International Monetary Fund, Gita Gopinath, who celebrated “the important efforts” of the new Argentine Government “to restore macroeconomic stability.”
Gopinath spent two days in Buenos Aires where she also met with the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, and the authorities of the Central Bank.
Her visit was “excellent,” according to the press release issued by the IMF on Thursday night, but the deputy managing director of the Fund has stressed that the Milei Government needs to “work pragmatically to obtain social and political support” to “ guarantee the durability and effectiveness of the reforms.”
It was not the first time that the Fund asked Milei to open up to negotiating with the rest of the Argentine political arc.
At the end of January, after the Government reactivated the payment plan that Peronism agreed to in 2022 to return the 44,000 million that the IMF granted to the Government of Mauricio Macri in 2018, the Fund also celebrated the economic adjustment, but asked Milei waist to agree on his economic plan in Congress, which those days was debating the great scrapping law that the president presented at the beginning of his term.
The law fell, Milei was left without emergency legislative powers or the almost 400 reforms that included the sale of some 40 state companies, but the adjustment continued.
After a devaluation that triggered inflation to 25% for December alone and 20% in January, the first full month of the Milei Government ended with a fiscal surplus, the first seen by an Argentine Government in more than a decade.
It was achieved after cuts in pensions, social aid and subsidies, while the country begins to see tension in the streets.
This week, the observatory of the Argentine Catholic University has calculated that poverty went from 49.5% in December to 57.4% in January.
There are some 27 million poor people in a country with 46 million inhabitants, the worst figures since the 2002 crisis. The IMF responded to the conflict that is beginning to grow in the streets of Buenos Aires.
“Given the short-term stabilization costs, it is essential to make sustained efforts to support vulnerable segments of the population and preserve the real value of social assistance and pensions,” he asked Milei in his statement.
After his meeting this Friday with one of Biden's strongest officials, Milei will travel to the United States, where on Saturday he will be one of the highlights of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the great meeting of American ultra-conservatives, that these days began with the visit of the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, and that tomorrow will have as its main course Milei, the leader of the Spanish extreme right, Santiago Abascal, and its biggest star: former US president Donald Trump.
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