American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is touring South America, with a first stop in Argentina.
John Batchelor radio:
Netanyahu arrived Monday, marking the first visit to Latin America by an Israeli leader since the creation of the Israeli state in 1948. He is also scheduled to visit Colombia and Mexico before going to New York, where he will address the UN General Assembly on September 26.
A few headlines,
Three: Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.
Here’s the class of 2017 picture,
Argentina’s Mauricio Macri (#6), Mexico’s Enrique Peña Nieto (#4) and Brazil’s Michel Temer (#11) are in attendance.
Public school teachers have been striking over the past three weeks, and have scheduled demonstrations for today. The WSJ reports that Demand for higher wages complicate President Mauricio Macri’s efforts to curb inflation and spur economy as the opposition backs the strikes with an eye on October’s legislative elections:
In intensifying walkouts and street rallies involving five national unions, teachers are asking for higher salary increases and blasting Mr. Macri for failing to jump-start the economy and control Argentina’s relentless inflation, which reached 40% last year. The government, aiming to cap inflation at 17% this year, has discouraged cash-strapped provincial governments, which set teacher salaries, from granting more generous raises.
. . .The deepening standoff underscores the difficulties facing Mr. Macri’s pro-business government as it seeks to unwind years of free-spending populist polices by his predecessor, President Cristina Kirchner, and secure the political and popular support needed ahead of legislative elections in October. Mr. Macri needs a convincing win to push forward with his reforms.
The Journal reports that teachers in the Buenos Aires province make 43% of what teachers earn on average in other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries.
over its human rights record,
Venezuela Removed From Trade Group Over Human-Rights Record. The decision comes as the country’s economy is ravaged by food shortages and runaway inflation
The debate over Venezuela’s role in the trade bloc comes as new conservative, market-friendly governments in South America are at odds with Mr. Maduro’s socialist policies and crackdown on opposition dissenters. Mercosur members Brazil and Argentina led a recent effort to block Venezuela from taking its turn as the trade group’s rotating leader.
Mercosur’s full members are are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Suriname are associate countries.
The handwriting has been on the wall for months. Caracas Chronicles:
Barring an unlikely 180-degree turn by either the four founding countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) or the Bolivarian Republic, MERCOSUR will strip the B.R. of V of any voting rights in the organization (it would still have a voice) over its refusal to adopt the group’s legal framework. And neither side is in a mood to back down.
The Foreign Ministers of Uruguay and Paraguay agreed that unless Venezuela changes its mind, the decision reached by the four other members back in September will go forward.
. . .
The impasse in MERCOSUR is not new: since it was admitted to the bloc back in 2012, Venezuela has been a divisive presence in the organization. The country has refused to accept any responsibilities or adapt its institutional framework in anyway while expecting to reap all the benefits.
At the same time, Caracas has tried to shift the group’s trade-centered raison d’etre into a more political one. Venezuela got away with it in part thanks to the loyalty of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and Dilma Rousseff, but after the election of Mauricio Macri in Argentina and the long impeachment process in Brazil, Mercosur became a deeply lonely place for the Bolivarian republic.
This step is the right thing to do. I don’t expect that Maduro will change his ways; to the contrary.
Ed Morrissey brought to my attention an article that claims that Donald Trump pressed Argentina’s president Mauricio Macri about a stalled building project,
Maybe @Fausta can check into that. https://t.co/OImw8Frofy
— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) November 21, 2016
According to a report in the Argentine paper La Nacion, when President Mauricio Macri called Trump to congratulate him on winning the election, Trump used the opportunity to urge him to clear the way for a stalled office building development.
Talking Points Memo translated the story, which included comments from well-respected local journalist Jorge Lanata.
“Macri called him. This still hasn’t emerged but Trump asked for them to authorize a building he’s constructing in Buenos Aires, it wasn’t just a geopolitical chat,” said Lanata.
Long-time readers of my blog remember that I have posted Lanata’s reports, especially on the Nisman assassination and on the Kirchner money trail.
Since Lanata’s allegation was made during last night’s TV show, I watched the full show on YouTube, here,
Lanata got a lot of mileage out of the story: during his opening monologue (see above), during the cartoon, and during his reporters’ panel. I’ll skip to the panel.
At 54 minutes into the video, Lanata said that his reporter Maxi Montenegro had heard the alleged Macri-Trump conversation. Montenegro, however, not only did not affirm either way, but talked about income tax reform, a totally unrelated subject.
At 1:03 into the video Romina Manguel described the upcoming Trump Tower US$150 million, 35-story office building, in Buenos Aires as “one of Trump’s most important investments”.
She stated that “a long time ago” a group of investors purchased a three-story parking garage in the Nueve de Julio avenue in downtown Buenos Aires. In 2007 those owners could not get a building permit, and YY Development Group, partners with Trump in a Punta Del Este, Uruguay, hotel, approached them with plans to build a Trump Tower at that site. (As you can see from the link, the Punta del Este building is residential, not a hotel.)
According to Manguel, the Buenos Aires Trump office building was granted the necessary permits early this year “before anyone thought Trump would be elected President,” and was scheduled to start construction in July next year, but following Trump’s win, the city legislature said the permits “may need renewing”.
Mangel and the other panelists clarified that in the US it is considered inappropriate for a President-elect to bring up the building approval subject, while it’s not in Argentina.
As much as I respect Lanata’s work, this story strikes me as based on hearsay.
First, there’s no actual evidence of what transpired during the actual conversation.
Second, the main source of the information conveyed to La Nación is Felipe Yaryura, a partner of YY Development Group (the other partner is Moisés Yellati, hence YY).
Yaryura claims to have been “at Trump’s bunker” at the NY Hilton during election night, and asserts that he’s the one who talked Donald Trump into running for POTUS “a little over a year ago.”
The Buenos Aires Trump office building appears to be one of the many licensing arrangements the Trump organization has made over the years.
So, to summarize:
1. Could the subject have come up during the Macri-Trump call?
Yes, it is possible. I just could not find solid evidence either way from the material I could locate as of the writing of this post.
2. Does Yaryura have much to gain by claiming the issue was brought up, and could he see it as a means of pressuring the city legislators into allowing the construction to go ahead as previously approved?
Yes, indeed.
3, Should Trump place his assets into a blind trust and stay away from any of his businesses from now on until the end of his terms(s)?
Absolutely yes.
4. Is Trump “cashing BIGLY in Argentina”?
Not quite,
Late Update 2:32 PM: Both President Macri and President-Elect Trump have denied that they discussed Trump’s building project during their post-election phone conversation.
Later Update: 2:48 PM: We received this statement from the Trump campaign: “Any reports alleging a discussion about personal business interests between President-elect Trump and President Macri are completely untrue. The Argentine President and his office have also refuted these baseless claims.”
Even Later Update 2:53 PM: And now a full statement from the Embassy of Argentina: “That issue was not part of the conversation between president Mauricio Macri and president-elect Donald Trump. The subject both leaders talked about was the institutional relationship, and they briefly mentioned the personal relationship they have had for years”.
UPDATE
Trending on Bad Blue.
As mentioned earlier, OAS chief Luis Almagro called for a meeting to discuss Venezuela’s human rights violations of the Democratic Charter.
Almagro needs at least eighteen votes to sanction Venezuela, which may prove difficult.
Caricom countries are still hopeful they could continue their very profitable Petrocaribe arrangements with Venezuela, as described in this article from Jamaica,
In essence, when the market price of oil exceeds $40 per barrel, the monetary value representing between 30 per cent and 70 per cent of each sale is loaned to the Government of Jamaica. This loan is to be repaid over a period of 25 years at the rate of 1 per cent per annum. Where the market price of oil is below $40, the monetary value representing between 5 per cent and 25 per cent of each sale is available to the Government of Jamaica as a loan for 17 years at 2 per cent. In either case, therefore, Jamaica receives a loan from Venezuela on concessionary terms.
Whether their hopes are realistic remains to be seen, but for now they are siding with Venezuela.
Another hurdle comes from Argentina. Casto Ocando, writing at Vértice (link in Spanish), reports on the internal battle lead by Argentina against the OAS sanctioning Venezuela.
Ocando has the documents,
Correo electrónico muestra esfuerzos de @CancilleriaARG para frenar aplicación #CartaDemocrática a Venezuela pic.twitter.com/nQLsDPtRja
— VÉRTICE (@verticenews) May 31, 2016
Venezuela is trying to buy time and calls for “dialogue”; John Kerry, consistent with the Obama administration’s never-ending streak of “smart diplomacy“, supports this call for “dialogue,” and so does Argentina’s ambassador to the OAS, Juan José Arcuri.
Why Argentina?
Diplomatic sources revealed to Ocando that Argentina’s current foreign minister and former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s chief of staff, Susana Malcorra, has pledged to support to Venezuela at the OAS in exchange for Venezuela’s vote at the UN.
in practical terms this means that Malcorra will block OAS sanctions against the Venezuelan communist regime so she gets to be chief of the United Nations. Great values for a Secretary General at the UN cesspool.
And she has Macri’s backing because it will add to his administration’s “achievements.”
H/t Alek Boyd’s FB feed.
UPDATE
Trending at BadBlue.
Luis Almagro, Uruguay’s former foreign minister, made the request Monday night for the meeting after submitting to the council a 133-page report on alleged human rights violations and the conflict of powers in Venezuela. The emergency meeting in mid-June, if approved, could eventually lead to Venezuela’s suspension from the hemisphere’s oldest and most important body.
Here’s the text of the Democratic Charter.
Roundup:
A must-read: Et tu, Macri? Why on earth is Argentina trying to block application of the Inter-American Democratic Charter in Venezuela? The tawdry story follows.
OAS Chief Calls for Emergency Meeting to Evaluate Venezuela
OAS head calls for vote on Venezuela’s ‘grave alterations’ to democracy
Venezuela: OAS head calls emergency meeting over crisis
OAS Calls Emergency Meeting on Venezuela’s Undemocratic Rule
The Macri administration is ending its 20% stake in Telesur, the propaganda cable network started by Hugo Chavez:
Argentina pulls out of leftist TV network Telesur.The pro-business government said it was shut out of financial and editorial decisions and said the leftist-leaning network blacklisted alternative viewpoints
The country is leaving because it was shut out of financial and editorial decisions, said Argentinian Minister of Communication Hermann Lombardi.
“Argentina was a partner prohibited from sharing our view,” he told radio station Vorterix. “It’s an interesting South American television project, but there was no pluralism at Telesur.”
Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro threw a snit
“The same actors who disappeared 30,000 young people in Argentina are trying to disappear Telesur,” Maduro said of the conservative Argentine government that announced Sunday it would pull its nearly 20 percent stake out of the Spanish-language network.
Maduro, whose government is broke, is now stuck footing a larger share of Telesur expenses.
In other news, Argentina Senate Approves Plan to End Bondholder Dispute. President Mauricio Macri is finding allies in opposition-dominated Congress
The Senate voted 54 to 16 to let Mr. Macri issue $12 billion in bonds and use part of that to pay $4.65 billion to the hedge funds, which had sued Argentina for not paying out on bonds they bought after the country defaulted on its debt 15 years ago.
The vote, the last domestic hurdle Mr. Macri faced in making a deal, allows Argentina to tap global credit markets for the first time since 2001.
Two good news in one day.
