Malcorra: 100 days of “Desideologización”.

More than 100 days have passed since Mauricio Macri became the president of Argentina and the analysis that spring up about his performance so far are rather extreme: either we’re on our way to become the Norway of South America or we’re bound to turn into a devilish media-powered right wing dictatorship that is going to dance on the grave of our dead human rights.

Because talking about Macri’s first 100 days as president is too mainstream, we are rather going to focus on the first 100 days of Susana Malcorra, the new Argentinean Foreign Relations Minister.

Malcorra was appointed as Foreign Minister of Argentina on November 24, 2015, and prior to that she was serving as Chef de Cabinet in the United Nations Secretariat since 2012 (which makes her sort of a demi god for every living nerd who has ever taken part in a Model United Nations Conference). Carrying years of experience working in an international organisation and its programs, and having an extensive résumé in the private sector as well, Malcorra turned the tables about the foreign affairs of Argentina.

Remember that BFF relationship with Venezuela? Well, drop that last F, because one of the first foreign policies changes was to threat Venezuela by invoking the Democratic Clause to ban them from Mercosur if the elections held back in December 2015 in that country were not transparent and fair. The Venezuelan elections were carried “in a democratic manner” as she told Radio Mitre, the opposition won and the warning was lifted. Everybody was happy, that is, everybody but Leopoldo Lopez, who remains imprisoned. No Democratic Clause was used, but the message was clear: The foreign policies of the new government are the exact opposite of those carried on by the former one.

In fact, the main objective that Malcorra pursuit in her first days as Foreign Minister was to “desideologizar” our foreign policies, meaning, to eliminate any ideology in the development of our foreign affairs. But being honest, that is little more than a catchphrase that intends to hide that there is an ideology, and it is a market-oriented one. The consequences of the neo liberal economic policies of the 90s are still sending chills down the spines of a lot of people, and the word “market” appears as our very own “F-word”, which would explain the rejection of the concept of “ideology” in politics that Cambiemos supports.

That plan of “desideologizar” comes in fact from a strong pragmatism, where the main objective is to make the foreign relations appear more flexible as well as to attract any kind of investment to our country. An excellent example of this is the new position about Malvinas/Falkland Island sovereignty issue with United Kingdom. The Kirchnerite administration held a strong position on this issue, keeping the relationship with the UK tied to one condition: the return of the sovereignty over the islands. But in the first days of Malcorra as Foreign Minister, she made it clear that the Malvinas/Falkland Issue could not be the only way to relate with the English people and Argentina and the United Kingdom should maintain a dialogue looking out for their mutual interest aside their historical differences. That is a subtle way of saying “yes, we would love some British pounds here, too”.

In these one hundred days, the greediness in the reconfiguration of the Argentinean Foreign policies has been notorious, converging with the changes in the ideas about economy and development of the current government. An Argentinean delegation led by Macri himself participated for the first time in 13 years in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland where he not only reunited with the British Premier, David Cameron, Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and the VP of United States, Joe Biden, but with CEOs of big multinationals as well. From the point of view of the new government, this was a complete success; from that of the opposition though, -mainly the FPV-, these were the first steps towards the auctioning of our resources and our independence.

If the goal of the new administration was to open Argentina to the world, it could be considered a success. We have received visits from the French President Francois Hollande, Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, Paraguayan Foreign Minister Eladio Loizaga and Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira. Malcorra has also visited Cuba, Bolivia, Uruguay and participated in the CELAC Summit (something like OEA but without United States nor Canada). But their greatest hit so far, the magnum opus of the new foreign policy was the visit of Barack Obama on March 2016.

The official visit of Barack Obama was like the confirmation that indeed we are again the nicest kids in town. Or the continent. With a full schedule, the President of United States said that “Under President Macri, Argentina is re assuming its traditional leadership role in the region and around the world”. Joking about Yerba mate, Manu Ginóbili and dancing tango, president Obama gave the thumb-up to the new era of USA-Argentina relations. Our countries signed off a lot of treaties of cooperat… OBAMA DANCING TANGO THOUGH. Media priorities.

I said before that if the goal of the new administration was to insert Argentina back into the world, this could be considered a success. I’m being cautious by using the word “considered”, because that success depends on how you define “world” in that affirmation. And this is the moment when we have to seriously consider what we said before about the “lack of ideology” that Argentina Foreign Minister tries to emphasize every time she talks about the foreign affairs strategy. There is no lack of ideology when “world” really just means United States, Europe and Latin America. The foreign policies is clearly oriented towards making Argentina a referent and a leader in the South American continent, pushing from Mercosur to create commercial ties with the European Union and trying to solve the Hold-outs conflict as quickly as possible. But what about the “world” outside USA, the EU and Latin America? There was a telephonic conference with Putin in the first days of administration, but nobody got very enthusiastic about that. No new policies were announced about the south-south cooperation, nor do we see this kind of urgency of open cooperation with Asian countries, otherwise so evident when we talk about foreign relations with European countries. Have you heard the word “Africa” in the last one hundred days? Do you hear the crickets too?

The first one hundred days of Malcorra as the head of Argentina’s foreign affairs were a total shift from the previous administration and the outcome is in plain view: Argentina moved towards the core of the Western Bloc of countries and that core run with spread arms towards us. Our country needs their investments as much United States and Europe need a new proxy of influence in South America given the decline of Brazil as the South American champion, consequence of its own corruption and internal problems. Is this a convenient move for Argentina? It’s undeniable that Argentina needs external money assistance in order to rearrange and reactivate its economy. The success of this new chapter in our foreign affairs depends on how well our president and our Foreign Minister and Ambassadors defend our national interest. May the odds be ever in our favour!