Q&A with Leandro Morgenfeld, author of “Bienvenido, Mr. President: De Roosevelt a Trump: Las visitas de presidentes estadounidenses a la Argentina”
Q:
President Macri had the unique opportunity to host two very different
American presidents, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Unlike other world
leaders, Mr. Macri maintained good relationships with both, though the
bilateral agenda has evolved. How did their visits reflect their
different relationships with Mr. Macri and Argentina’s evolving
relationship with the United States over recent years?
A:
When he took office, Mauricio Macri began a foreign policy oriented
toward what he called a “return to the world,” with the purpose of
increasing exports, attracting investment and accessing international
credit. As part of his strategy of alignment with the United States and
European powers, he offered to host the Eleventh Ministerial Conference
of the World Trade Organization and the G-20 leaders’ summit in
Argentina. Additionally, he received U.S. President Barack Obama in
March 2016 and President Trump in November 2018, and he was one of the
first Latin American leaders to visit the Trump White House, in April
2017, despite having previously expressed support for Hillary Clinton.
Indeed, Mr. Macri had portrayed himself as close to Mr. Obama, who had a
better international image, but later took advantage of the business
relationship he had cultivated with Mr. Trump in the 1980s to realign
himself with the White House following the election. Meanwhile, the two
recent U.S. presidential visits to Buenos Aires were distinct; Mr.
Obama’s was bilateral, whereas Mr. Trump’s was part of a multilateral
event.
Q:
In your book, which came out before Mr. Trump’s visit to Buenos Aires
last November, you characterize Mr. Trump’s trip for the G-20 as “una oportunidad excelente para dilucidar el estado de la relación bilateral.”
How would you evaluate Mr. Trump’s visit? Would you consider Mr.
Macri’s close relationship with Mr. Trump a political liability or
asset? How did the public’s reaction differ from Mr. Obama’s visit,
given Mr. Obama’s generally high public approval rating in Latin
America?
A:
The visit of the unpredictable and iconoclastic U.S. president, Donald
Trump, was the most highly anticipated, and feared, by the Argentine
Foreign Ministry for the G-20 gathering. In the eyes of the Argentine
hosts, the fate of the summit depended on Mr. Trump’s attitude. San
Martín Palace did not spare any gestures toward the current inhabitant
of the White House. Mr. Macri’s former foreign minister, Susana
Malcorra, had been careful with Argentina’s relationship with
Washington, avoiding a return to the “carnal relations” of the 1990s. By
contrast, her successor, the protocol expert Jorge Faurie, does not
conceal his desire for close ties. Before the G-20, for example,
Argentina announced Mr. Trump would participate in a State Visit lasting
three of four days.
Ultimately,
Mr. Trump only agreed to a breakfast with Mr. Macri. Indeed, the
American tycoon seized every opportunity to belittle the G-20 summit,
and even its host president. He declined an invitation for a gala dinner
at the presidential residence, the Quinta de Olivos, scheduled for the
Thursday before the summit. The next day, he made Mr. Macri wait a half
hour before showing up for their Casa Rosada breakfast and bilateral
meeting. As he and Mr. Macri posed for photographs, he could not hide
his displeasure with the apparatus that transmitted simultaneous
translation, and threw it to the floor. In his brief remarks, he
reminisced about how handsome Mr. Macri had been in the early 1980s.
The
subsequent bilateral meeting was also brief, and breaking with
tradition, there was no joint statement or press conference. Instead,
Mr. Trump’s spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, caused bilateral
friction by reporting that both leaders had supposedly repudiated
China’s predatory lending in Argentina. Mr. Faurie, eager not to disrupt
the State Visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping after the G-20, quickly
denied Ms. Huckabee Sanders’s account of the meeting.
Q:
An important theme in your book is the impact of domestic politics and
public opinion on the U.S.-Argentina relationship. In the next two
years, both countries will hold highly polarized elections. In
Argentina, there is a possibility that former President Cristina
Fernández de Kirchner, who had a tense relationship with the U.S.
government, might return to the Casa Rosada. Is the newly strengthened
bilateral relationship durable, or subject to dramatic changes depending
upon the leaders in both countries?
A:
Regarding the Argentina-United States relationship, from when President
Néstor Kirchner took office in 2003 until the 2005 Summit of the
Americas, in Mar del Plata, the relationship had chiaroscuros.
However, relations changed following Mr. Bush’s confrontation with Mr.
Kirchner at the summit, and as Argentina focused on Latin American
integration, and raised concerns that it was moving toward the
Bolivarian axis led by Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Ecuador. President
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner oscillated during her eight years in the
Casa Rosada between confrontation and agreement with Washington. After
she won reelection in 2011, for example, she sought a reprochment with
the White House, but without abandoning Mercosur, UNASUR and CELAC as
tools for regional coordination.
Following
Mr. Macri’s election in late 2015, there was a complete turn in the
relationship with the United States, reaching a level of convergence
similar only to that during the presidency of Carlos Menem, in the era
of the Washington Consensus. The future bilateral relationship will
depend on the result of Argentina’s October elections; if Mr. Macri is
reelected, he will continue his close relationship with the White House,
while a Peronist or kirchnerista triumph will result in greater autonomy from the United States, and a greater focus on Latin America.
Q:
In your book, you highlight the role of social movements and popular
protests during U.S. presidential visits. Do these demonstrations affect
the domestic political impact of U.S. presidential visits, or taint the
bilateral relationship? Despite Mr. Trump’s low approval rating in
Argentina, why were there apparently few protests during his visit?
A: The
book places the visits in the context of the bilateral, and regional,
relationships, the objectives of each government, and the reactions they
provoked in Argentina, both for and against the deepening of the
relationship between both countries. Agricultural corporations,
industrialists, the military, trade unions, social organizations,
political parties, artists, student groups and intellectuals took
advantage of the visits to express their demands, opinions, criticisms
and desires related to the relationship with the government of the major
global power.
Q:
Until Mr. Macri’s 2017 visit to the Oval Office, the last time an
Argentine president visited the White House was Carlos Menem in the
1990s, correct? What has been the impact of Argentine presidential
visits to the United States on the bilateral relationship? What message
does an Argentine president traveling to Washington send to the
Argentine public and to the international community?
A:
President Fernando De la Rúa visited Washington twice, and met with
both President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush, who also
welcomed Néstor Kirchner in 2003.
The
first Argentine president to visit the White House was Arturo Frondizi,
in 1959. Later, President Raúl Alfonsín did the same, in the 1980s, and
Mr. Menem visited Washington on several occasions in the 1990s. For
some Latin American leaders, to be invited to the Oval Office represents
proof of one’s international stature. But my question is, why? The
challenge is to establish a non-subordinate relationship, despite the
enormous power asymmetries. The significance of bilateral presidential
meetings, whether in Washington or Buenos Aires, depends on the agendas
and foreign policies.
|
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario