Blinken after his visit to Milley: “Argentina can count on us while it works to stabilize its economy.”

Argentine President Javier Miley received, today, Friday, in Buenos Aires, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, to “deepen relations” and “increase trade” between the two countries, as the latter confirmed in a press conference at Casa Rosada. The visit of the head of US diplomacy, a senior official in the government of Democrat Joe Biden, who arrived in Argentina after the meeting of the G20 foreign ministers in Brazil, comes hours before Miley travels to Washington to participate in the Conservative Action Conference. Politics, the big gathering of the American radical right, which will include former President Donald Trump.

Neither Blinken nor the Argentine government publicly referred to this coincidence until a question came from an American reporter. Blinken said: “I cannot speak about their future meetings, it depends on President Miley, and I can only speak about our meetings, which were very productive.” Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino has not confirmed that Miley will meet Trump in Washington, but they will speak at the forum on Saturday. Miley, who did not appear in public after the meeting, told reporters 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 presented by Blinken and Mondino.

Mondino explained that the Argentine government hopes that both countries can “demonstrate common values, especially democracy and freedom.” Blinken has maintained this line, thanking Milley's far-right government for its “strong condemnation” of the Hamas attack on Israel last October, and its commitment as a regional partner to ensuring Ukraine's security after the Russian invasion in January. 2022, and as a reference in the Organization of American States to “defend democratic values” against the authoritarian regimes that rule Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

“The Argentine people can count on us to stabilize their economy,” Blinken said. “Perhaps most importantly, Argentina has what the world really needs, and we want to be its partner because it nourishes and provides energy to the world.” Regarding Argentina's intention to dollarize the economy, the grand plan promoted by Miley to stop inflation, which in January reached 254% on an annual basis, Blinken stated that he would wait to “listen to any plan” in this regard, but he did not want to evaluate it. The Foreign Minister stated that this “decision depends on Argentina.”

Miley's agenda between the International Monetary Fund and Donald Trump

On Thursday, Miley received the second-in-command at the International Monetary Fund, Gita Gopinath, who celebrated the “important efforts” made by the new Argentine government “to restore macroeconomic stability.” Gopinath spent two days in Buenos Aires where he also met with Economy Minister Luis Caputo and central bank authorities. Her visit was “excellent,” according to the press release issued by the International Monetary Fund on Thursday evening, but the Fund’s Deputy Director General stressed that Milley’s government needs to “work pragmatically to obtain social and political support” in order to “ensure financial stability.” Durability and effectiveness of repairs.”

This was not the first time that the Fund asked Miley to be open to negotiating with the rest of the Argentine political arc. At the end of January, after the government reactivated the repayment plan approved by Peronism in 2022 to return the $44,000 million that the IMF gave to Mauricio Macri's government in 2018, the Fund also celebrated the economic correction, but asked the Miley Waist to agree to its plan. Economics in Congress, which was discussing in those days the great repeal law that the President had presented at the beginning of his term. The law fell, leaving Miley without emergency legislative powers or nearly 400 reforms that included the sale of about 40 state companies, but the amendment continued.

After a currency devaluation that pushed inflation to 25% for December alone and 20% in January, the first full month of Miley's government ended with a fiscal surplus, the first surplus seen by an Argentine government in more than a decade. This was achieved after reducing pensions, social assistance and subsidies, while the country began to witness tension in the streets. This week, calculations by the Argentine Catholic University Observatory indicated that the poverty rate rose from 49.5% in December to 57.4% in January. There are about 27 million poor people in a country of 46 million people, the worst number since the 2002 crisis. The International Monetary Fund has responded to the conflict that has begun to escalate on the streets of Buenos Aires. “Given the costs of stabilization in the short term, it is necessary to make sustained efforts to support vulnerable segments of the population and preserve the real value of social assistance and pensions,” Miley asked in his statement.

After his meeting on Friday with one of Biden's most powerful officials, Milley will travel to the United States, where on Saturday he will be one of the highlights of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the large gathering of American ultraconservatives. These days began with the visit of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, and tomorrow their main focus will be Milley, the leader of the Spanish extreme right, Santiago Abascal, and his biggest star: former US President Donald Trump.

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