The Minister of Finance (Economy) of Brazil, Fernando Haddad, answered very succinctly when asked whether at the meeting of the governors of the New Development Bank (the bank of the BRICS, a group formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) the Argentine government’s request to this body to offer guarantees for loans to Brazilian investors exporting to Argentina was discussed. “We didn’t have time” it was the only thing Haddad said to confirm that Argentina’s request had no place on the agenda, according to Agencia Brasil
One could say yes second blunder that the government of Alberto Fernández suffers from the government of his “friend” Lula Da Silva. The first was a few days ago, when Lula received Fernández in Brasilia but fired him without the economic help that the Argentine president had come to see.
Haddad attended the NBD governors meeting via zoom. The absence of Haddad in China, where the meeting of the BRICS partner countries is taking place It was also an affront to Argentine Economy Minister Sergio Massa, that he went to China precisely to negotiate, as a matter of priority, the guarantee request which according to Haddad could not be processed.
At the BRICS meeting, the incorporation of new group membersas well as investment strategies focused on the ecology of transition.
Haddad recalled that the virtual meeting was former president Dilma Rousseff’s debut at the BRICS bank.
“The current governors have presented their views on the bank’s agenda,” Haddad said. “There has been general talk of the need to expand funds; study the incorporation of new members; and attention to investments on strategic themes, especially investments in the so-called Global South, focused on the issue of ecological transition,” he added.
Haddad had made a pro-Argentine gesture before the United States. It was when he asked that country’s treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, to help Argentina “on humanitarian grounds.”
It was at a meeting Haddad and Yellen had weeks ago in the Japanese city of Niigata, Japan.
“We are very concerned about what is happening to our neighbor Argentina. And one of the things that brings me to the G7, on the recommendation of President Lula, is to make the G7 and the G20 aware of the specific conditions in Argentina right now. We bring this concern to a very obvious humanitarian issue,” Haddad told reporters at the previous meeting of the G7 group of countries.
Haddad’s request to powerful Yellen came a week after Alberto Fernández met with Lula, who, although he jokes that his colleague went to Brazil to ask for money to overcome the crisis and returned “empty”, promised that would have “helped to pull the knife out of Argentina’s neck”, in a clear reference to the pressures that the country has with its debt maturities before the International Monetary Fund. In China, Lula had said that the Fund had “suffocated” Argentina.
Source: Clarin
