POLICIES-ARGENTINA: Foreign Policy Unchanged

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 17 1999 (IPS) - Argentina’s close relations with the United States, established by former president Carlos Saul Menem, will remain largely unchanged under his successor, Fernando de la Rua, according to political sources.

Menem’s foreign minister, Guido di Tella, coined a phrase to describe the kind of ties Argentina sought with Washington. “We want carnal relations,” the minister declared, prompting a flurry of speculation – not to mention bad jokes.

While he has given no indication of any real changes in Argentina’s foreign policy, De la Rua, who took office one week ago today, has made a “few tweaks here and there,” analysts point out.

One of the biggest changes was heralded prior to the change of government when the new vice president, Carlos Alvarez, warned US Defence Secretary William Cohen that any participation by his nation’s armed forces in international conflicts would have to be decided by Congress.

Another, even stronger signal was the presence of De la Rua at the 20th Congress of the Socialist International, which took place in Paris at the beginning of November. While there, the president- elect met with the main social-democratic leaders of Europe, many of them holding high government posts.

Menem first came to power in 1989, and introduced various neo- liberal initiatives inspired by the policies of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain.

An important part of the president’s strategy, which sought to attract foreign capital and reduce the country’s investment risks, was to forge a closer friendship with Washington.

Now, the new administration, supported by the centre-left Alliance party, intends to give Congress a voice in Argentine foreign policy, a move that clearly diverges from the ideology of its predecessor.

In 1991, Menem issued a decree authorising the participation of the nation’s navy in the Gulf War, a conflict that had been approved by the United Nations to dislodge the Iraqi army from Kuwait. That unilateral decision was strongly criticised by Congress, particularly opposition legislators.

The same year, Di Tella announced that Argentina was withdrawing from the Movement of Non-Aligned Nations, and in 1992, Argentina joined the United States in condemning the human rights situation in Cuba – ending its historically neutral position toward the Fidel Castro government.

Relations between Argentina and the United States during the 10 years of Menem’s tenure weathered the leadership of two different U.S. presidents – George Bush, a Republican, and his Democratic successor, Bill Clinton.

This close friendship, cemented even further when the United States named Argentina as a strategic ally, has in recent years become the object of much theoretical analysis and interpretation.

Some observers believe Menem’s decisions fell into the category of “pragmatism,” while other say they were “peripheral realism.”

Either way, the goodwill between the two countries was consolidated, and to prove his intentions, Menem ordered the dismantling of the “Condor” project, a missile development programme that was frowned on by the United States and Israel.

Argentina also cultivated ties with the United Kingdom, re- establishing the diplomatic relations suspended in 1982 as a result of the Malvinas Islands war.

Britain again started investing in Argentina, and signed bilateral accords for the commercial exploitation of a maritime shelf near the Malvinas. Nevertheless, Menem failed in his stated objective of recovering the islands, which Argentina lost in 1833.

Always seeking ways to boost investor confidence, Menem made it a priority to resolve the last pending border disputes with Chile, a nation that shares an extensive common border with Argentina.

De la Rua has given no sign that he plans to backtrack on those commitments. As in other matters resolved by Menem, like economic stability, the new president will advance policies currently in place without any abrupt change of direction.

Political sources close to De la Rua indicate that in terms of foreign policy, the new administration may seek closer ties with the European Union (EU), although none believe that this would be sufficient to overcome the Europeans’ resistance to eliminating farm subsidies.

During Menem’s term, the Argentine foreign minister launched a take-no-prisoners campaign against the subsidies and tariff protections applied by the EU to its agricultural sector.

The Menem administration opened Argentina’s economy to trade and foreign investment – without any reciprocal gesture by the EU, whose markets remained virtually sealed to agricultural imports.

Companies in the sector got their hopes up when De La Rua attended the Paris meeting and networked with various European leaders, but these were quickly dashed when the World Trade Organisation’s ministerial conference in Seattle this month ended in failure.

It became clear at those talks that, whoever holds power in Argentina, European protectionism will be a bone of contention for years to come.

Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – Argentina’s closest allies, and its partners in the Southern Cone Common Market (Mercosur) – hope that the obstacles to the bloc’s development will be gradually erased by the new De la Rua government.

The integration of America’s Southern Cone nations has made little real progress over the last two years due to the divergent economic policies of the two biggest members, Argentina and Brazil, which were further polarised by the crises in Russia and Asia.

Prior to the global economic crash, Mercosur had finalised trade pacts with Bolivia and Chile, and later engaged in talks to create the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

The bloc is now awaiting the start of negotiations with the EU scheduled for next March, which will focus on liberalisation of trade in goods and services.

De la Rua also will be under pressure to publicly comment on the legal travails of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, in light of the two nations’ renewed friendship after years of tension and rivalry.

Pinochet is currently under house arrest in Britain, awaiting the outcome of extradition proceedings brought by Spain for crimes under the International Convention Against Torture.

In any event, the foreign policies introduced by Menem irrevocably ended the days when Argentina assumed a stance of relative isolationism, neutral diplomacy and a closed economy.