Argentina’s harsh criticism of new IDB leadership

Argentina and Mexico were united in confronting the leadership of the IDB led for the first time in history by an American, Mauricio Claver-Carone, who represents the most right-wing sectors of the Republican Party. “Shameful” and “a joke”, defined the Secretary of Strategic Affairs, Gustavo Beliz, the management proposal that Claver-Carone presented to the annual meeting of the organization. Beliz warned of the lack of response from IDB leaders to what they called “an unprecedented crisis” for Latin America, while other international organizations designed strong special aid, such as it happened with the IMF and the World Bank. Within the government, they argued that this was a medium-term strategy to weaken the current administration, which not only has carried out very mismanagement over the past six months, but has found itself without political support after the defeat of Donald Trump. , for whom Claver-Carone was an advisor.

The IDB’s annual meeting is held in Barranquilla, Colombia. The exhibitions take place virtually, although Claver-Carone has come to participate in person. The American was elected last September, breaking an unwritten regional policy rule that called for the body to be headed by a Latin American., a position endorsed by the continent’s former presidents and former foreign ministers. However, Claver won the vote of several countries with right-wing governments – Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia – who sought to have fun with candidate Trump. They did not go well: in a few days, Trump lost the election to Joe Biden.

Claver-Carone has its own history with Argentina. One chapter was when he put on a show and left Buenos Aires before attending Alberto Fernández’s inauguration ceremony because he found out there was a representative of the Venezuelan government. Another arrived when He acknowledged in a zoom that he had interceded with the IMF to grant the government of Mauricio Macri the largest loan in its history in order to facilitate his re-election. Beliz was the candidate Argentina had proposed to chair the IDB, backed by years of experience working in the Washington-based body. Yesterday he represented the country at the first assembly chaired by Claver-Carone, who voted on his management plan titled “Vision 2025”.

A whole stick

Faithful to the affinity of their presidents, Mexico and Argentina act in harmony on matters of foreign policy. Thus, the representative of Mexico had to open fire in the assembly and fired with the first criticisms of the American leadership. But the Beliz case went much deeper. “The 2025 vision seems incoherent, not very credible, fuzzy and untimely,” he said, as if to anticipate what was to happen. One by one he marked the inconsistencies he saw in the plan. Basically, the lack of concrete responses to the regional crisis. He said the crisis “rises by the elevator” as the response offered by the IDB “Starting with this shameful resolution, they are slowly moving up the ranks”.

At the heart of his argument, he criticized Claver for having promised in his campaign that the IDB would capitalize to endow itself with more resources and help the most vulnerable countries to cope with the pandemic, and that now he did not nothing concrete proposed on this proposal. . “What is proposed to us is smoke, words, without any kind of coherence”, summed up the representative of Argentina. Officials who had the opportunity to follow the assembly in streaming, assured that Brazil and Uruguay had also been very critical of the American leadership. And, the data that has been highlighted, Biden administration delegated a very low-level civil servant to attend the assembly, a way of showing their zero affinity with the leadership of the former Trump collaborator.

Yes indeed, in the Argentine government they were excited about the possibility that this was the beginning of the end of the Claver-Carone administration, who has a five-year term but can be removed if the necessary votes are obtained. It will be a medium or not long term path. They expected he would still have the votes to approve his plan, but given the level of discontent that was seen in the assembly – with Argentina at the limit – They hoped that soon things would return to their place and that it would once again be a Latin American who would lead the IDB.