Within hours of Javier Milei’s election win over Argentinian President Alberto Fernández, Latin America’s 3rd largest economic power withdrew its petition to join the BRICS. Scheduled to become a member of the bloc at the start of the coming year, Argentina will shun what Fernández and many financial analysts called a “great opportunity.” The struggling Argentinians will sink with the other nations clinging to the dollar hegemony. For those who question “why” – the reasons are obvious.
Puppeteering Western Elites
Who could stand in the wings of such a reversal of fortune for South America’s 2nd biggest economic power? Well, the American hegemons, of course. It should come as no surprise that Javier Milei was the head economist for Máxima AFJP, a private pension company which is 40% owned by New York Life (BlackRock). This U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission registration statement from 2012 shows NYL Advantage controlled 40% of Máxima AFJP. Meili was installed as Argentina’s leader (like Ukraine’s Zelensky) as pushback against the multipolar world taking shape.
For BlackRock and other institutional shareholders of Latin American debt, and with the dollar under assault, Argentina joining the BRICS would have been a death spike. The new bloc move would also not be in the best interest of billionaire Eduardo Eurnekian, the man standing directly behind Milei. The connections between Javier Milei and BlackRock is through Darío Epsteín, representative of Pampa Energía, which is in bed with Eurnekian (CGC Energy). BlackRock also holds a huge amount of Argentinian debt securities. As for Eurnekian, he’s a fascinating figure, a child of Armenian immigrants to Argentina who is known as “The Nation Builder in Chief” to Armenians.
Argentina’s migration into the Russia-China orbit would have been as bad or worse than losing the Ukraine proxy war on Russia where American corporate investments are concerned. To understand how crucial Latin American countries are to the Western financial hegemony, we need only look back to the 1990s, when advisory committees of international banks negotiated debt-restructuring agreements for Argentina, Brazil, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Nicaragua and Iraq. This story about former Citibank chair William Rhodes, from the Center for Financial Stability, lists names of people heavily invested in American and European domination of finance. One name, BlackRock co-founder Barbara G. Novick, bears special importance, given the association through BlackRock with the newly elected Argentina president.
Nation Building Wizards
Rhodes (now 88), the person most instrumental in creating the current cleptocracy after the 2008 financial crisis, must soon pass the torch to another of the financial elites so that the crises can continue to line the pockets of the ageing order. Rhodes, a board member or director of organisations into every aspect of foreign policy, banking, international investing, energy, Washington think tanks, and more, is also the vice-chairman of the National Committee on United States–China Relations. His involvement (control) of Argentinian politics and policy began with his debt restructuring for Buenos Aires and led to President Mauricio Macri’s election in 2015.
Rhodes and his financial elites colleagues have set Javier Milei at just the point the Argentinian people were about to emerge from their current crisis with BRICS alignments. Alberto Fernández had to block Russia and the other BRICS from ideologically and fiscally dominating Latin America. Under Macri, Argentina became another satrap for the Anglo-American elites by realigning with America, making a free-trade agreement with the EU and the Pacific Alliance. Few remember that Macri’s grandmother, Lea Garbini, was part of a powerful family in Italy aligned with Benito Mussolini.
I’ve no space to discuss the brilliant game former Minister for the Economy of Argentina Martín Guzmán played with the IMF international investors after his appointment in 2019. Suffice it to say, the man criticized most by President-elect Milei bought time so that Argentina could escape the clutches of the banksters who’ve run the country for decades now. A BRICS alignment would have been an economic adrenaline shot for the country’s economy. Now, the people of the South American country can look forward to the status quo for at least another four years. It should be noted that in 2023, Argentina repaid the IMF 1,648,697,347 in interest alone. Argentina was forced to borrow $775 million from Qatar to make IMF repayments. Ironically, Qatar is to become a BRICS member next year.
Returning to the Fold
After his election, the Argentine President’s first trip to the U.S. illustrates America’s Argentina geostrategic blocking action against the emerging world order. One meeting in Washington with Juan Gonzalez, the National Security Council senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs, is particularly important. Reuters reported the private trip as “Argentina’s Milei seeks foreign policy, IMF reset in Washington trip.” The fact that U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Milei only certified that Milei’s election was a coup for U.S. and western elites’ interests. Now imagine Argentina as a BRICS nation adopting a new currency of exchange and perhaps even telling the IMF to FO. The country currently owes 33.075 billion (SDR) in IMF loans. Real GDP is -2.5%, and inflation is 122%. This occurred with longstanding US investments, past trade agreements with the EU, etc. So, the logic of Alberto Fernández seeking BRICS membership was sound. What the Western banksters have in mind for the Argentinian people is more of what they are used to.
At the end of the day, Argentina’s foreign policy will now be unabashedly pro-United States and pro-Israel, while relations with the country’s biggest trade partners, Brazil and China, going sour.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.