President Alberto Fernandez He confirmed to the United States government that he will attend the Summit of the Americas on June 9 and 10. After the announcement, at 5:45 p.m., he received a phone call from his North American counterpart, Joe Biden, who invited him to Washington for their first bilateral meeting on July 25.
According to the official statement issued by the Government, the objective of the meeting will be “to deepen the relationship in a broad agenda of strategic cooperation issues, among others: climate change, financial cooperation, renewable energies, technological innovation, human rights and agri-food production“.
25 minutes on the phone
The telephone dialogue it lasted about 25 minutes. During the call, according to the Casa Rosada, the presidents “agreed to analyze various aspects of world realityamong which the problems of food insecurity, the energy transition, the new regional value chains and technological change with social inclusion stood out, in a context where the importance of consolidating concrete steps to guarantee global peace stands out”.
Also, commented that “the dialogue helped to highlight the potential of the bilateral link, and to establish a roadmap that, within the framework of Latin America and the Caribbean, allows the deployment of opportunities for comprehensive, sustainable and inclusive human development”.
Go to the Summit of the Americas, yes or no?
Fernández’s attendance at the Summit of the Americas, which will take place in Los Angeles between June 6 and 10, was in doubt because the Argentine government, like the Mexican, had said that the meeting would be distorted if they were not invited. Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.
However, after intense dialogues between Fernández and his Latin American peers such as The president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador; that of Chile, Gabriel Boric; the one from Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro and the one from Bolivia, Luis Arce, He defined that he will go and that there he will present a speech in which he will question the exclusion of these three countries from the Summit.
Before the consultation on the exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, the director of the National Security Council for the Western Hemisphere, John Gonzalez, He expressed this Wednesday at an international press conference that the Biden government “has not yet defined the final list of countries invited to the Summit.” Therefore, it is not yet confirmed what will happen and the Argentine president’s speech will depend on that.
With quotes to Pope Francis
The president received the call from his American counterpart in the presidential office. He was all the time together with the Secretary of Strategic Affairs, Gustavo Belize. At no point in the communication was the topic of the Summit of the Americas mentioned. “They were waiting to clear that issue so they could talk,” they assured this newspaper in Balcarce 50.
Biden recognized Fernández for his role as president pro tempore of CELAC and in another section of the call, Fernández told him that when he was on his last tour of Europe, he spoke with several presidents, in particular with the first German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, about food security.
In that framework, Fernández quoted and praised the words of Pope Franciswho yesterday said that “the blockade of the export of wheat from Ukraine endangers the lives of millions of people. I make an urgent appeal for the universal human right to food to be guaranteed. Please, do not use the Wheat, staple food, as a weapon of war!”
Biden replied that “I couldn’t agree more” and, in a jocular tone, added that for them “Pope Francis is the best export product of Argentina”. Fernández replied that “we do not export it, but for now we lend it to the world,” to which Biden assured: “I perfectly understand why I would do the same.”
Background
Fernández and Biden had briefly spoken face to face on October 30, within the framework of the protocol greetings at the G20 Leaders Summit. Earlier, on April 22, the Argentine president spoke, via videoconference, at the Leaders’ Summit on Climate Change, to which he was invited by Biden a month earlier.
At the end of Wednesday’s call, Biden sent greetings to the first lady and to Francisco, the president’s newborn son, and Fernández to his wife. The American fired him saying that they would see each other in July, but Fernández reminded him that they would meet earlier in June, during the Summit in Los Angeles.