Fernández to Lula: “You have a friend in trouble”

The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernandezwas decorated this Monday by his counterpart Brazilian, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silvato whom, when thanking the gesture and appreciating the friendship that unites them, he confided: “you have a friend in trouble”.

Lula imposed on Fernández the Grand Collar of the Order of Cruzeiro do Sulthe highest decoration that the Brazilian State confers on foreign authorities, in a ceremony held after a private meeting.

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Fernández thanked the “honor” to its “endearing friend Lula”, and celebrated the fact of receiving this award in the framework of a state visit to Brazil on the occasion of the bicentennial of the establishment of relations between both countries.

“Brazil and Argentina they were born to be inextricably linked”, declared Fernández, who underlined the “friendship that exists between the two nations” and “the two towns”, and also between himself and Lula.

In an apparent allusion to the critical financial situation of his country, Fernández told Lula: “you have a friend in trouble”, adding that when someone is in that situation, “go to your friends” for help.

Lula reiterated the political will that exists in his government to lend a hand to Argentina, but he did not propose any alternative other than those that are already known and are under negotiation.

These go through a possible financing from Brazil in addition to the works of the gas pipeline of Dead cowa deposit located in the south of the neighboring country, and to encourage the use of local currencies for the payment of bilateral trade, a mechanism that has existed for more than a decade and that has not yet been used by businessmen.

After the meeting, a joint communiqué was released in which both governments pledged to continue strengthening bilateral cooperation in the most diverse sectors, including the field of mercosur.

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The document cites the areas of finance, infrastructure, transportation, energy, mining, finance, communications, science and technology, defense, security, culture, health, sports, and tourism, among many others.

After imposing the decoration on Fernández, Lula offered lunch to the Argentine delegation at the Foreign Ministry, after which Fernández held a meeting with the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco.

“Argentina is going through a very difficult time”, Fernández insisted in the meeting with Pacheco, to whom he explained that “the economy” of your country is “complicated” as a consequence of an intense drought that affected export activity.

“They stopped entering 20,000 million dollars”, argued the Argentine president, who said that “complicates when importing products from Brazil”.

The Argentine president’s agenda also included a formal visit to the headquarters of the Supreme Courtwhere he met with the president of the court, Rose Weberbefore returning to Buenos Aires.

Fernández faces the final stretch of his mandate with inflation skyrocketing above 100% per year, an acute shortage of foreign currency and difficulties in renegotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) the payment of a loan of 44,000 million dollars inherited from the management of his predecessor, the conservative Mauricio Macri.

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Lula has advocated for Argentina in various forums and even before the group BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa and China), which he unsuccessfully tried to convince to open a line of credit in favor of that country through its development promotion bank.

Argentina will go to the polls next October and the Peronism headed by Fernández has already anticipated that its presidential candidate will be Sergio MassaMinister of Economy, the main person in charge of dealing with the serious financial crisis facing the country and who did not accompany the president on his visit to Brazil.

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.