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Dismissing US, Argentina defends ties with Russia, China

A general view shows the Kwai Chung container port in Hong Kong, China, on July 6, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Argentina has defended its economic relations with Russia and China, days after the United States voiced apparent desperation at the growing influence of Moscow and Beijing in Latin America.

Argentina’s Secretary of International Economic Relations Horacio Reyser said in an interview published on Friday that Buenos Aires aimed to expand trade with Russia and China.

“There is an increase in interest [in China and Russia] and we encourage it because it seems very positive,” Reyser said.

“Today, we have trade with Russia of $900 million, which is really very low. We believe that this can double,” he said.

China is the top buyer of Argentina’s main cash crop, soybeans.

Reyser said the Argentinean government would not be restricting its trade relations with those countries and will seek business opportunities and the nation’s best interests in relations with other countries, as well.

“We seek diversification,” he said.

Last week, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson voiced concern about the expanding trade relations between China and Russia and countries in the Latin American region — which Washington considers its backyard.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks during a press conference with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos (unseen), in Bogota, on February 6, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

Tillerson said the region did not need “new imperial powers,” adding that the American 1823 Monroe Doctrine — which posited that outside countries had to avoid the Western Hemisphere — was “as relevant today as it was the day it was written.”

Russia and China have long argued that the US still has under Cold War-era mentalities. During the period after World War II and until 1991, the US and the former Soviet Union competed for influence across the globe.


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