Puerto Iguazu, Argentina – The presidents of South American powerhouses Brazil and Argentina met here Wednesday to sign a sheaf of accords and celebrate two decades of moves toward economic community, while negotiators discussed ways to keep Argentine industry from getting flattened by Brazil’s.
In the session between host Nestor Kirchner and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in this border city, Argentina received strong backing from Brazil as Buenos Aires girds for more negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.
The two presidents hailed “the success achieved” over 20 years of working toward economic integration, and signed a declaration endorsing Kirchner’s insistence that Argentina will not sacrifice growth to satisfy IMF demands.
Under the rubric of “Development, Justice and Integration,” the accord affirmed a wide-ranging “strategic partnership” between Argentines and Brazilians to eradicate hunger and poverty, foster democracy and ensure respect for human rights, among other goals.
The document describes the Argentina-Brazil alliance as “key” to the project of regional integration, including “construction of the South American Community of Nations.”
The two presidents agree to “jointly lobby” the IMF, World Bank and other global financial institutions “to avert the imposition of conditions that affect the capacity of governments to promote policies of growth, decent employment and social inclusion.”
Kirchner and Lula were unable to finalize a “competitive adjustment clause” that Argentina wants in order to temporarily shelter some of its industries from an influx of Brazilian goods.
But Argentine diplomats told EFE the delay was strictly due to “technical questions” that they expect to be resolved soon.
After signing the joint declaration and a score of more specific bilateral pacts, Kirchner seconded Lula’s statement that Wednesday’s summit represented a “new historic landmark” in ties between the two neighbors.
The men also joined in praising the “courage” and “statesmanlike vision” displayed by their respective predecessors, Raul Alfonsin and Jose Sarney, when they launched the Argentina-Brazil partnership on Nov. 30, 1985, with the Declaration of Puerto Iguazu. Both of the former presidents were present for Wednesday’s event.
Lula sought to emphasize that a healthy Argentine economy is good for his country.
“Brazil wants a strong, industrialized Argentina with technological capacity,” he said, adding that Brasilia supports Buenos Aires in its determination to include provisions ensuring continued economic growth in any agreement with the IMF.
“The stronger Argentina is, the stronger Brazil will be and the stronger Uruguay will be, the stronger Paraguay will be, the stronger Bolivia will be and the stronger all the other South American countries will be,” Lula said amid applause from both delegations.
Trade disputes between the two nations, mainly arising from Argentine producers’s concerns about cheaper or better-made Brazilian merchandise flooding Argentine markets, have arisen and been at points quite sharp in recent years.
In May, Argentina’s deputy secretary for integration, Eduardo Sigal, said his country “needs” Brazil as a good trading partner on equal footing, but not at any price.
After introducing protections against the import of home appliances and other Brazilian products, Argentina proposed late last year working out with Brazil a system of safeguards to address the “economic asymmetries” between them.
The trade disputes are longstanding and intensified because Brazil now enjoys a surplus with Argentina, the opposite of the way it was for most of the past decade.
But while Kirchner cannot ignore the complaints from his country’s manufacturers, he is unlikely to allow the issue to undermine relations with Brazil.
Buenos Aires’s Pagina/12 newspaper reported earlier this week that Kirchner is anxious to solidify links with Lula so as to avoid too tight an embrace with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who is leveraging his country’s oil wealth to enlist Argentina – still recovering from a devastating economic downturn – in his own ideologically driven initiative for regional integration.
