President Macri's new era opens with coherent decision-making on the debt issue, to obtain the go-ahead and re-present itself on international markets with a country that regains its pride at the center of Mercosur, at a time of serious difficulties for Brazil and Venezuela.
Having reached an agreement with creditors for 6,45 billion US dollars, of which 4,65 with the four American vulture funds, the definitive annulment of the legal injunctions raised by the cynical and stainless Judge Griesa is now awaited, after the settlement of the payments and the approval of the Argentine Parliament for the modification of the laws blocking the agreement, linked to the previous administration.
On April 14, it will be able to put an end to a 15-year legal dispute between the Argentine state and its creditors over the mother of all sovereign bankruptcies that occurred in 2001 for 82 billion dollars, in which, after a loan from the IMF, Argentina it failed on both external and internal debt and to multilateral entities simultaneously. The 15 savers represented by the Argentina Task Force are also included in the new agreement.
Even the arrival of a large Chinese delegation in Buenos Aires to celebrate the anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Argentina and the inauguration of the new Ambassador Diego Guelar have seen Macri very active and pick up the thread of the discussion on that proposal launched by the Chinese for a new agreement between Mercosur and China in 2010 and to finalize the opening of a new trade center in Shanghai dedicated to Argentinian products.
Currently China is the most important trading partner for Brazil and Chile and the second strategic partner for Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia and Uruguay. On the other hand, the Chinese automotive giant Lifan has begun a plan to spread its products in Latin America starting from Buenos Aires, demonstrating how the radical change of the Chinese model with a new impetus for the export of its high-end products is in full development, with great concern for the European manufacturers operating in the South American continent. Not to mention the resurgence of soybean imports, which are a mainstay of trade relations with the Chinese.
Therefore, three months were enough to see the delegations of the main G7 countries and that of the EU take turns on the Argentine territory and/or support the new course of Mauricio Macri. The emerging markets sector sees few clear-cut opportunities at the moment like Mexico and Russia and many countries in dire political straits like Turkey and Brazil or credit crunches like the Gulf countries and Venezuela.
It is a golden moment for Argentina, its provinces and its main corporates to recover market share by being underweight in the portfolios of many dedicated funds. Macri is working hard to get the country out of stagflation for good, halving inflation and reducing the current account deficit to below 5% this year and to convince the rating houses to bring the country back to at least a single B exiting the degree of selective default that has persisted for a long time.
Cristina Kirchner as Dilma Roussef sees her star dimmed even after leaving power after a very heavy judicial aftermath and with the accusation of having manipulated the exchange rate with the sale of derivative products below the effective market value, thus causing huge losses also the foreign exchange reserves of the Central Bank, reduced to a minimum by the Government of the President.
Added to that are other allegations of money laundering and corruption not to mention the specter of the Nisman murder. The death of the magistrate killed the day before the publication of a dossier directly accusing Cristina Kirchner of having hidden Iran's involvement in the attack on the Jewish center of the capital in 1994, in which 85 people died.
Argentina has decidedly changed pace and Tango is danced according to different styles: from the Tango Escenario all figures and acrobatics to the Tango Milonguero which is danced more modestly, tightly embraced and with feet firmly planted on the ground. The Argentine people were fed up with the "adornos", Kirchner's scenographic embellishments, and now with Macri they are walking at a measured but proud step towards a recovery of international consensus on the country without melancholy but with new certainties, which seems to see the great Gavito on stage again, and his “criollo” pride.
