Exclusive: Máximo and Wado have key roles in approaching Biden administration
Argentina rehearses a new approach to the United States that was staged with the visit to Buenos Aires of Admiral Craig Faller, the head of the powerful Southern Pentagon Command, which will be reinforced this week with the arrival of two other important officials of the Biden administration.
What is interesting is that the turn of the Peronist administration had the active participation of the top leaders of La Cámpora, Máximo Kirchner and Wado de Pedro. And perhaps not by chance it came after Cristina Kirchner publicly asked Biden to assist Argentina in the difficult negotiation it faces with the IMF.
Sources aware of the talks confirmed to LPO that the military chief's visit to Argentina had been dropped, but was rescheduled after the efforts from Máximo and Wado de Pedro. "The Cámpora is evolving from an ideological view of politics and power to a strategic view in political and economic terms," the sources explained.
This evolution, particularly eying the United States, brings the organization closer to the positions of another key player in the government, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Sergio Massa, who always maintained acceptable relations with the key players in the government. And perhaps it is part of a larger agreement that is now observed in the government: the harmony between Massa and Máximo, which includes Wado.
The twist of the Peronist administration is part of a similar U.S. movement in the region, anticipated by LPO. Biden's government seems determined to reverse its departure from the region, which allowed the advancement of its great geopolitical rivals: Russia and China. A slip off that was accentuated by the strong pandemic assistance these powers made, sending off millions of doses of their vaccines, while the United States hardly appeared in the scenario.
The head of Southern Command, Admiral Craig Faller.
The fact that the top leaders of Kirchnerism are in the discussion is reasonable , since it was Cristina who, since her second term, carved a geopolitical rapprochement with China and Russia, as she regains power as seen in her efforts to get the country to access the Sputnik V vaccine, in addition to China's Sinopharm. Indeed, were it not for these doses, Argentina would have been without vaccines in the face of the failure of Alberto's big bet, the failed alliance with AstraZeneca and entrepreneur Hugo Sigman.
With Argentina visit, US military flexes 'soft power' in competition with China
In an interview with LPO, Benjamin Gedan, former South American director of the White House National Security Council and director of the Washington-based Wilson Center's Argentina Project, said: "There was a real feeling during the Trump administration that Russia and China had outperformed the United States in Latin America by providing relief for Covid. The case applied particularly to China, but now Moscow is also concerned with the sales of vaccines," he said.
That the White House put Argentina among its priorities in the region is no coincidence. The return of Peronism to power with Alberto Fernández, following the failure of his ally Mauricio Macri, opened the door to a possible ideological turn in the region, which continued with the triumph of Evo Morales' candidate in Bolivia and the possibility of Lula re-governing Brazil, two candidates who had the militant support of the Argentine president, as well as candidate Rafael Correa in Ecuador.
In this context, a news as big as Faller's tour is that Biden officials will set foot in Buenos Aires next week, explicitly avoiding Brazil. Bolsonaro was one of the last presidents in the world to recognize Biden's triumph and maintained total ideological harmony with Trump. Today, in the midst of collapsing in the polls and with an uncontrolled epidemic, Bolsonaro seems to have become an uncomfortable ally for the Democratic administration.