Ambassador Jorge Argüello formalized in Washington yesterday the invitation to US President Joe Biden to participate in the CELAC summit in Argentina on January 24, but he also took the opportunity to reclaim the US government for a law that may complicate the export of Argentine lithium to this country.
Ambassador to Washington Jorge Argüello had breakfast with the undersecretary for the Western Hemisphere, Brian Nichols, in the Argentine villa on New Hampshire Avenue. Arguello he hand-delivered the letter with the invitation to President Biden to Nichols to participate as a special guest at the VII Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), in Buenos Aires in three weeks’ time.
Alberto Fernández is the head of this body, which has already anticipated that it will invite all the countries of the hemisphere, so it is obvious that Biden will refuse to participate in the meeting where there will be representatives of governments that Washington considers dictatorships such as Venezuela or Nicaragua.
senior US officials avoid running into representatives of those countries in any official setting. In the Government they are aware and understand that the White House could send someone of lower rank. However, they look for the official who attends to be of the highest standard possible.
Argüello also extended another invitation to the Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, to visit Argentina this year, as part of the celebrations for the bicentenary of bilateral relations, which began in 1823. Let Blinken travel it is much more likely.
Meanwhile, President Fernández’s trip to the White House, canceled in July last year due to Biden’s Covid, has no visible date. At the time they had informed Argüello that talks to schedule it would resume after the last legislative elections in November in the US. but there was no news. Meanwhile, Biden received Ecuadorian Guillermo Lasso in December and invited Lula de Silva.
But beyond the invitations, there is a trade issue that worries Argentina and which was raised by Argüello to Nichols: the negative impact that the Inflation Reduction Act, sanctioned by the US Parliament in August, since last year.
The law allows grants for electric vehicles whose batteries contain minerals mined or processed in the United States. or in countries with which Washington has a free trade agreement. This is not the case in Argentina.
Argentina is the first supplier of lithium in the United States and this law could complicate the trade of this strategic mineral. Argüello has asked the US government to clarify the provisions in the regulation of the law so that the flow of this key product is not affected. They ask that Argentina is not left out and that it is treated in this case as if it were a privileged commercial ally.
There is also interest from US companies. Companies such as General Motors, Tesla, Ford and BMW have Argentine lithium as a key input to their EV transition scheme.
Source: Clarin
