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U.S. Creditors and cattlemen demand measures against Argentina
La Nacion
July 18, 2008

By Hugo Alconada Mon

They united to block the importation of meat for "legal and food safety" reasons

WASHINGTON.- Squeezing the tourniquet. This is how the strategy that the holdouts adopted could resume, who joined forces with the U.S. Cattlemen's Association to close the door to an eventual inflow of money to Argentine coffers, with a common complaint: the same country that equally mocks creditors and trading partners, they say, could infect the U.S. countryside with hoof-and-mouth disease.

"The goal is to avoid potentially infected imports," said the executive director of the American Task Force Argentina (ATFA), Robert Raben, during the press conference that was held yesterday to celebrate the bill that would promote closing the door to Argentine beef.

The bill was introduced last Thursday by Senators Tim Johnson (Democrat from South Dakota) and Mike Enzi (Republican of Wyoming) and demands to impede the "questionable importation" of cattle until the Department of Agriculture (USDA) certifies that the country is found to be free of hoof-and-mouth disease.

The blow in effect could not be more opportune. While the U.S. delegation that is headed by the leader of the Bush Administration for Latin America was beginning its meetings with Argentine officials, the bill hit Argentina for its legal, trade and food safety standards.

Lobby against Argentina

Seen simply, it could appear that it's more than a bill, which was seconded by another seven Senators: Democrats Jon Tester, Claire McCaskill, Byron Dorgan and Ken Salazar and Republicans John Barrasso, Pete Domenici and Wayne Allard. But the initiative could not have happened without the lobbying of the groups against Argentina: the cattlemen and ATFA.

This is how the same squad of nine senators that yesterday supported the bill sent out, last March, a letter to Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer with their "strong objections" to the "unacceptable risk" from lifting the ban, as Argentine food safety controls is generating "serious doubts".

Senator Tester restated the link between that letter and the demand by the cattlemen and the holdouts during a radio interview. In addition marking it as a "defense of U.S. agricultural workers", he emphasized "the importance that Argentina repay its debt."

The best interests

The retort also arrived in the form of a letter, which the embassy led by H ctor Timerman sent to Tester and the other senators. He reminded them that the regulatory process of USDA should be respected "in a way that we can normalize trade relations without delay."


But now, while Shannon and other Americans reached in Buenos Aires and his Argentine counterpart say that they didn't speak about the Paris Club much less the holdouts the president of the USCA, Jon Wooster, asked that more legislators support the bill.

"Argentina has shown time and again that it doesn't have the best interests of the United States at heart," he complained, at a time that "billions of dollars in U.S. credits are being given to (Argentina) and it is still going on despite the orders of U.S. courts."

In sync with the cattlemen, Raben defined the legislative move as "an important first step" to "pressure the government of the United States to help Americans collect the billions of dollars in unpaid debt that the government refuses to pay."

Raben also made clear the tourniquet that they are seeking to apply to Argentina. Without access to international financial markets, with its "hand gestures" to the local agricultural sector and its "disregard for legal security", among other factors, estimated that the country is "losing some US$6.4 billion in foreign investment" per year.