We have visitors: Argentina takes an exam every 3 months | America is not loosening the knife it holds on the country’s neck

“No ruler can rule with a knife at his neck.”, Lula said on Thursday, attending Dilma Rousseff’s swearing-in ceremony as head of the BRICS-created development bank. The phrase referred to the IMF’s relationship with Argentina. Mauricio Macri left the country on the brink of the abyss, and every three months the economy minister has to make a choice, thus triggering a US execution deadline. Amidst the election climate, trips to Washington have been renewed, including visits by Republican and Democratic senators and North American representatives who are making the rounds these days. Upcoming visits by US Southern Command chief Laura Richardson and State Department No. 2 Wendy Sherman.

Former President Mauricio Macri was plunged into a crisis caused by a massive loan he demanded from the IMF – so he wouldn’t lose an election – and former US President Donald Trump offered him – to guarantee control of Argentina if Macri lost – to block Chinese investments that the US now refuses to reverse. The country has become a target of intense pressure.

From the first invasion of the Malvinas Islands by the North American battleship Lexington in December 1831–which eventually led to British occupation in 1833–to this yoke of debt that forced periodic trials, it is needless to describe the relationship. Sovereignty puts pressure on governments to influence decisions and subsidies, employment, wages and pensions.

There is no need to align with ideological positions. Not to attack or defend the “Christian West,” as the dictators put it, or to agree with the Russian or Chinese regimes. The reality is that US friendly action with Argentina is unthinkable. Without resorting to the ideological question and without remembering the historical relations between the two countries, the United States is the main (but not the only) responsible for the current crisis of inflation and poverty. He is not the only one, because there are also local officials, Mauricio Macri and his friends who fled with those dollars.

Irregular debt for the memorial, imposed by Trump on the IMF. When the regime changed and Joe Biden took office, instead of accepting a deal that would allow Argentina to recover, even though they regretted the abuses, they tightened the controls. Now you have to make a choice every three months with impossible goals amidst drought and world wars. Like the prisoner hanged every three months, here, each reprieve–more conditional than the last–is presented as an act of “friendship.”

The US is not Argentina’s main trading partner. It ranks third behind Brazil and China. Argentina’s economy is more closely tied to those two countries than Washington’s. But China is Brazil’s main trading partner. And Russia is the main supplier of field in Brazil. 85 percent of Brazil’s fertilizer needs come from that country. There is no more reactionary sector in Brazilian politics than the Russian-dependent soy apparatus. This is why Jair Bolsonaro is careful to remain neutral in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, despite pressure from Washington.

President Lula was in Shanghai on Thursday to inaugurate Dilma Rousseff as president of the Bank of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Bank of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), which Argentina will join in the coming months if nothing happens by then.

“The IMF cannot suffocate countries as it is doing to Argentina now, as it has done with Brazil and other countries,” Lula said., which secured trade and financing in local currencies without the use of the dollar and demonstrated the new bank as a way to become independent from the “moorings” of traditional financial institutions, referring to the IMF and the World Bank. “No ruler can rule with a knife around his neck because the country is in debt.

The new bank of these major economies has an initial fund of one hundred billion dollars. The figure compares favorably with the $55 billion the IMF gave to Mauricio Macri. It is an absurd figure because of its immense size, which was given to a country and disappeared without leaving a single work. This is not a fantasy like two PPI “Kirchnerism stole”. The payouts are solid and so are the controls. You don’t have to dig any wells in Patagonia to find them.

Argentina will join the BRICS (which will become BRICS) at a meeting in South Africa in August this year. But the U.S. delegation suddenly discovered Argentina, and Washington’s terms of canceling every target, had been imposed on Argentina to block deals it had agreed with China, from the Atucha III to the purchase of fighter jets. But the US is not ready to finance Aducha’s mega project, the Chinese are. The planes that Argentina can buy from NATO powers cannot have sophisticated radars because Great Britain blocks them. They will be blind planes for protection. On the contrary Chinese planes are cheap and have all the latest equipment.

As Lula said, America is not friendly with Argentina, which has a knife to its neck. It is not about seeking enemies or taking sides rather than protecting one’s own interests. With the exception of dictatorships, or neoliberal governments such as Menemism, Argentina maintains a foreign policy of peace, meaning neutrality in conflicts created by the powers.

Washington is only offering to tighten the knife. And what’s worse is that The knife the United States has on Argentina’s neck was given by Mauricio Macri when he co-opted for change.. Increasingly strong pressure from Washington comes at election time, with the Frente de Todos government approaching a disadvantageous situation due to high inflation it cannot control and perpetual choices of debt.

The irony is that many citizens, fed up with the impact of inflation and other unresolved issues, feel that it is better to know someone than to make false acquaintances. And, without looking at the moving strings behind the characters, they put their faith in people like Javier Mili or Patricia Bulrich, the same candidates who are now putting the knife to the necks of the citizens who are going to choose their executioners.

Noam Chomsky reaffirmed yesterday that “the international order is changing from a model with the United States at the forefront to a very different multilateral system,” where there will no longer be one country that dominates the functioning of certain spheres across the planet. “In the emerging world system, Latin America has an opportunity to free itself from being historically too close to the United States,” Chomsky said.

Despite the fact that a sector of society perceives them as “innovators”, Argentina will never be able to capitalize on this moment of planetary change with characters like Miley or Fulrich. In the world, hegemony is falling, leaving their NATO allies to pay a high price for that backsliding.