Argentina’s President, Mauricio Macri, yesterday said he had told US Vice President Joe Biden that his recently installed government was ready to build a “pragmatic, intelligent” relationship with Washington.
Relations between Argentina and the US soured under the South American country’s former leader, Cristina Fernandez, who frequently railed against what she called bullying by greedy capitalist powers in her fight against US creditors.
“We are ready to build a pragmatic, intelligent and productive relationship among our countries,” Macri told a news conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“We are ready to work together against climate change, drug trafficking, terrorism and corruption,” added Macri, who was elected last November on a centre-right platform.
Asked if he was concerned by the presidential bid of US Senator Marco Rubio, who has in the past opposed World Bank loans to Argentina over the country’s unpaid debt, Macri said: “Rubio’s position is related to past relations with the US.”
Flanking Macri, Finance Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay said he and Argentina’s central bank governor had met with the International Monetary Fund’s head Christine Lagarde to discuss an Article 4 review of Argentina this year.
Prat-Gay said the government would publish all the required economic data to enable a review. The last such review took place in 2006, during the presidency of Nestor Kirchner, Fernandez’s late husband.
Macri, who took office on December 10, also said that both he and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff wanted free trade negotiations between regional bloc Mercosur and the European Union to advance.
The talks have languished for years, in part because Argentina has dragged its heels over which goods it wants included. More recently they have been snagged over when each side makes its proposals.
“We have spoken about the need to exchange proposals at the same time in the first quarter of this year,” Macri said. “I am optimistic we can move in this direction.”
Macri admitted that talks with US creditors in a long-running legal battle over unpaid debts had not made much progress, although he hoped to reach a settlement early this year.
“We want to reach a settlement, find a fair agreement,” Macri said, adding he hoped to reach a deal “this year, early this year”.
Macri said the biggest sticking point in the discussions was the issue of penalties on Argentina’s defaulted bonds.
“We don’t want to discuss capital, we want to discuss penalties which are really high. In some cases penalties arrive to 80% and in case of one bond capital is 10 cents and penalties are 90%,” the president said.