The Kirchnerists chose a very bad moment to fight with the United States. As in the worst years of the cold war, US officials are carefully scrutinizing the political credentials of those who ask for their help and are reluctant to lend a hand to those they believe are sympathetic to their enemies. It happens that the “empire” that bothers the thinkers of the Instituto Patria and their fellow travelers on the left so much is no longer the self-confident superpower of a couple of decades ago. On the contrary, it is convulsed by an identity crisis so serious that those who speak of the danger of a civil war or, at least, of a long period of political violence similar to those suffered by Northern Ireland and the Basque Country, are not considered irresponsible delusional but people who deserve to be taken seriously.
Since the government of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner wants Joe Biden’s team to support it in the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and thereby help save the country from what according to some could be a socioeconomic cataclysm even more destructive than that of twenty years ago, it would be assumed that for a while it would desist from producing facts that cause alarm in Washington. However, judging by what they are saying and doing not only by members of the most Kirchnerist wing of the government but also by presumably more moderate people, it would seem that Alberto has decided that it would be convenient for him to scare the Americans by approaching the Russians, Chinese and even the Iranian theocrats, which is why he refrained from protesting in time for the presence of Mohsen Rezai, the alleged perpetrator of the bloody attack on the AMIA headquarters in July 1994, at a ceremony with the presence of the Argentine ambassador that was organized to celebrate the beginning of a new term as president of Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega for life.
And as if it weren’t enough to flaunt his fraternal sentiments toward Ortega, the equally brutal Nicolás Maduro, and other warlords in the region who, despite their obvious affinity with fascism, are often branded as leftists by the international media, Alberto does not He has hesitated to join the furious offensive against the Supreme Court that is being promoted by such prestigious figures as Luis D’Elía and Hugo Moyano. Is it that he believes that the Americans will treat him better for fear that Argentina will align with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping? It is at least possible that he believes he is capable of taking advantage of the geopolitical games that have the rest of the planet on edge.
As it could not be otherwise, the virulent conflicts that keep North American society divided have tarnished the image of the country that had become accustomed to playing a hegemonic role on the international scene. Is he still the undisputed leader of the “free world”? Many traditional allies of Washington in Europe, Asia and, needless to say, Latin America are preparing to face a turbulent time when, without a power that is in a position to guarantee some order, ambitious tyrants will not hesitate to use the military power they have accumulated. Can Israel, Taiwan, South Korea and Ukraine trust the American protective shield? The outrageous way in which Biden abandoned the Afghans to a terrible fate made them tremble, while those determined to crush them, the Iranian Islamists, Chinese communists and Russian nationalists, were emboldened and quickly began testing their defenses.
For Biden, who upon moving to the White House a year ago imagined that the end of the administration of the disruptive, unpredictable and isolationist Donald Trump would be enough to restore “normalcy” before – hence the optimistic slogan “America is back” that he insists on repeating – the conviction of so many that the United States is no longer “the indispensable country” is a major problem. He doesn’t like the idea of posterity comparing him to Romulus Augustulus, the last Roman emperor. In order to convince pessimists that they are wrong, he is trying to persuade the governments of democratic countries to close ranks behind him to meet with renewed vigor the challenge posed by aggressive “autocracies”: China, Russia, Iran and its minor partners, such as Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba. For now at least, advisers surrounding Biden place Argentina in the democratic camp, but they have every reason to suspect that members of Alberto’s government, beginning with Cristina, would prefer to cultivate the ties that already exist with the Putin regimes and Xi who are, of course, more than willing to overlook the personal eccentricities of those trying to befriend them. For them, it is better that they are corrupt and prone to violating democratic rules, as they do when they fight Justice and practice “lawfare”, since in that case it is much easier to pressure them.
Be that as it may, when it comes to Argentina, it is not only a matter of preventing the current president from collaborating with dictators who are hostile to the United States. So is finding a way to help the country rejoin the developed world that it left in search of a different destiny without anyone knowing for sure what exactly it aspired to. Thus, those in charge of North American foreign policy are still trying to find an answer to a question that is not at all simple that dates back to the 19th century: How to relate to Argentina?
Although the anticipated “colossus of the south” would soon cease to be a rival in the making for the north, what would come later turned out to be even more problematic for those in Washington who have wanted to promote the development of the countries of what they see as their sphere. of influence. For more than fifty years, people in the United States have been asking themselves what their country could do to reduce the risk of Argentina ending up as a kind of geopolitical black hole that others would try to fill.
In the years that followed the defeat of Nazism, Americans understood that the Soviet Union hoped to profit from Argentina’s prolonged agony; today, his successors believe that China is determined to do so, which, of course, has technical and financial resources that are far superior to those of the Soviet empire when it still existed. Likewise, in the opinion of many, Chinese capitalism is an attractive alternative because in the “model” thus assumed, the economic is firmly subordinated to the political.
For a multitude of reasons, the current North American political elite would like Argentina to succeed in solving its economic problems in order to consolidate itself as a prosperous, stable democracy, and, above all, for Latin America, for the good of the West as a whole and, as a Anthony Blinkin would say, “vibrant”. By the way, it wouldn’t be in your interest if the country went under. However benevolent the intentions of the Americans, as well as the Europeans, Japanese and others who are emotionally committed to the order that was established after World War II, until now the most highly valued experts in the developed world have been so incapable like the members of the Argentine political class to elaborate a recovery program that could be viable.
Flood the country with fresh dollars? It is, more or less, what the International Monetary Fund tried when Mauricio Macri was in the Casa Rosada and in Washington many imagined that helping him would serve to keep Cristina and her family at bay. It didn’t work. Nor would it do much good if the IMF agreed to sign an undemanding deal with the Alberto government in the hope that it would seize the opportunity to carry out some genuine reforms.
Would it be more realistic for the Americans and their allies to resign themselves to the fact that the Argentine disaster would continue to deepen to such an extent that the country would have no choice but to settle for what little it would have left in order to then make a serious effort to recover? The risks of washing one’s hands of the apparently impossible Argentine case so that the protagonists have to solve it, that is, the political leaders who have allowed it to reach its current dimensions, would be so great that it would be assumed that there are already those who are trying to think of how to manage the sociopolitical and economic catastrophe that they see approaching.
The authors of the Davos Forum report speculating about the possible “collapse of the Argentine State” are far from the only ones who foresee a tragic outcome of the drama that the country is experiencing. He shares the fear felt by a growing proportion of those who believe they have the necessary material and cultural resources to make their way in another part of the world. Needless to say, unless it is reversed soon, the flight of human capital that is under way will have much more negative consequences in the long run than those that would be caused by the loss of all the dollars that still remain in the vaults of the Central Bank.
