U.S. ask to Argentina to return to a positive relationship with its creditors
The Assistant Secretary of State U.S. Latin America, Roberta Jacobson, today called on Argentina to return “to a positive relationship with the international financial community and its creditors.”
During a hearing in the subcommittee for Latin America of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, Jacobson acknowledged that the bilateral relationship with Argentina is “difficult” due to tensions in the country “with the international financial community.”
“Argentina must return to a positive relationship with the international financial community and its creditors in U.S. and worldwide,” he said.
The official said that these “difficulties” led last month to U.S. President Barack Obama to suspend trade benefits granted to Argentina the country due to non-payment of over $300 million after two separate arbitration awards for two U.S. companies.
United States last week also expressed its “concern” over Argentina’s decision to expropriate 51% of YPF oil company owned by the Spanish Repsol 57.4%, considering that “create an investment climate very negative “affects” the entire international community “in the words of the deputy speaker of the State Department, Mark Toner.
In addition to difficulties in financial matters, Jacobson said today that the security relationship has not recovered fully since February 2011, when the Argentine government decided to seize materials from a plane carrying U.S. Air Force training equipment police.
“Since the incident with military aircraft a year ago, we could work on issues such as cooperation against drug trafficking in the way that we would,” admitted the official.
Jacobson insisted that Washington is moving in the “positive areas” of the relationship, while still finding “challenges.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Connie Mack, who chairs the committee, said that Argentina “no good” and “is ignoring judicial proceedings,” referring to their cases pending at the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes ( ICSID).
Along with the suspension of trade benefits and yet underlying diplomatic upset by the case of the plane seized, the relationship between the U.S. and Argentina suffered another blow in March when Washington first included that country in its blacklist of countries with higher money laundering in the world.
Category: Mutual Funds
