Global Courant 2023-04-18 05:31:43
The head of the powerful Southern Command of the United States, General Laura Richardson met on Monday with Defense Minister Jorge Taiana. At the same time, Clarín learned, from very high sources in Buenos Aires, that he was offered a meeting with Vice President Cristina Kirchner, like the one they had last year, but the response was not positive.
The former president had surprisingly received Richardson in her Senate office at the end of April 2022, on her first visit to Argentina. Now no details were reported as to why the meeting was not accepted. Clarín was unable to reconstruct the events on the US side.
The military discharge trip has in focus, like that of April last year, the strong interest of the Joe Biden administration to pay attention, contain and see how they can support their allies. And on that train, stop the advance of China and Russia, against which the general has spoken openly.
Without going any further, in March of this year, before the Senate Defense Committee, he warned that China “manipulates” Latin American governments with economic needs through “predatory investment practices.” He said that “Beijing continues to expand its economic, diplomatic, technological, informational and military influence in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
In the same Senate session, in the heat of the war in Ukraine and the new military tensions over Taiwan, another of the generals -Glen D. VanHerck, commander of the US Northern and North American Aerospace Command- expressed that “Russia and China” had the “ability and intent to put the United States at risk to achieve their strategic objectives”
In the greatest secrecy, General Richardson arrived in Buenos Aires on Sunday where she was received by Ambassador Marc Stanley, who with Jorge Arguello, his Argentine counterpart in Washington, are seeking to sustain a bilateral agenda that finally found Biden and Alberto Fernández in the White House.
Also in Buenos Aires on Friday was Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who also spoke about Russia and China, saying that the latter sought to impose a “new order” that “undermines democracy.”
“Gen. Laura Richardson met with Minister @Jorge Taiana to discuss cooperation strategies in areas of common interest, such as international peacekeeping operations and disaster assistance,” the US embassy tweeted. in Buenos Aires, without saying anything else.
Meanwhile, the Southern Command indicated that Richardson and the Head of the Joint Command of the Argentine Armed Forces, General Juan Martín Paleo, had met to “discuss security cooperation.” They added “Argentina is a key contributor to regional security and the maintenance of world peace.”
Taiana provided some more information, although always in newsletter mode. “Today with General Laura Richardson, head of @Southcom, we are discussing various issues regarding Defense. The current bilateral agreements, the hierarchy of the Armed Forces, military equipment and the strategic priority that Argentina assigns to the South Atlantic,” he wrote. . This Monday night, she invited her to dinner with Paleo and several of the heads of the Armed Forces, including Xavier Isaac, from the Air Force, and from the Navy, Admiral, Julio Horacio de la Guardia.
Precisely in the field of Defense, although not only, are the current concerns of the United States. To show interest in China not consolidating with investments in the Logistics Pole that Argentina wants to build in Ushuaia; that they do not enter to play in Telecommunications, with Huawei; that they do not enter the Waterway with large companies; and do not build a nuclear power plant either, now the fight is in other areas of defense.
China has been offering some JF 17 Thunder aircraft, plus joint cooperation in some military manufacturing. But the United States offers some F16s to counteract Chinese sales, but they require the United Kingdom to lower a military veto that it has imposed on Argentina.
A curious situation occurred this Monday. While Vladimir Putin’s foreign minister met with his Brazilian counterpart, in the context of an unexpected noise between Lula da Silva and Washington over the Brazilian’s alliance with China and Russia, Richardson became the second US official to be received in Buenos Aires in less than a week. Argentina’s alliance with the United States conditioned by its economic needs is very evident.
“The way in which Brazil has addressed this issue both substantively and rhetorically by suggesting that the US and Europe are somehow not interested in peace or that they share responsibility for war is deeply problematic,” he said. John Kirby, one of the White House spokesmen. “At that point, Brazil is parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda, paying absolutely no attention to the facts,” he added.
