In exchange for the bailout of Donald Trump and his Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who gave him air for the elections, Javier Milei is doing his homework. As Bessent expressed in public, without even bothering to conceal his intentions, one of the conditions of the loan was that Argentina turn its back on China – the geopolitical rival of the United States – and align itself unrestrictedly with Washington.
In these days some of the consequences of those requests from the North were seen. For example, the Libertarian government deactivated the Chinese project to install a radar in San Juan and does not plan to reactivate the construction of the dams in Santa Cruz.
The main link with the Chinese government was Guillermo Francos, so the United States suggested his removal from the Chief of Staff, something that effectively occurred after the elections. Francos had had at least fifty meetings in the last year with representatives of the eastern country and that lobby was not well regarded by Washington. The governors also went on alert because they depended on the former official to process Chinese investments. As anticipated by the newspaper El Cronista, Francos had facilitated an agreement for the creation of a joint venture to build the Santa Cruz dams with the participation of the Chinese company Gezhouba Group. All that remains to be seen. At the same time, the Government deactivated China’s project to install a space surveillance radar in the San Juan town of El Leoncito.
In parallel, Karina Milei has just suspended her visit to the China International Import Exhibition (CIIE), the main fair to link Argentine producers with that country. He had promised to attend in the days when Argentina was negotiating the swap with the Asian giant. This deepens, at the request of the United States, the commercial and diplomatic distancing with the second largest importer of Argentine products.
In Trump and Bessent’s TEG, Milei obeys and the Chinese lose.
