The chancellor Pablo Quirno warned this Thursday that Argentina is willing to move unilaterally in its trade opening if Mercosur does not keep pace with the process driven by the Government of Javier Milei.
During his presentation at the Council of the Americas, Quirno stated that the country needs to accelerate its integration with the world and is not willing to wait indefinitely for the regional bloc to adopt the same speed.
Argentinians, he asserted, have no “time to waste” and need to expand the number of trade partners. In this regard, he emphasized that the Government's intention is to advance together with Mercosur, although he left open the possibility of negotiating outside the bloc if the expected changes do not occur.
“We need more partners, we want to do it with Mercosur, but if the bloc does not keep up the speed we need, we will advance bilaterally,” the chancellor stressed.
Quirno also used his speech to draw a strong contrast between the current foreign policy and the orientation that Kirchnerism had over the last decades.
Referring to the rejection of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), he recalled: “Two decades ago, Kirchnerism celebrated in Mar del Plata to the chant of Alca, Alca, to hell with it. Today we are closing agreements with the United States and we say long live freedom, damn it.”
Quirno highlighted Milei's economic direction
The chancellor stated that “Argentina has started to think big again” following Javier Milei's arrival in Government. Quirno explained that since the beginning of the current administration, “we have regained a horizon of prosperity”, a situation that allows for projecting the country's future with a broader perspective.
To consolidate that scenario, he pointed out that Argentina must “create the conditions for it to happen, maintain a course, and turn every decision into results capable of accumulating over time.”
In this context, he highlighted the role of the Foreign Ministry in the strategy of economic and trade opening. “From the Foreign Ministry, it is our job to ensure that this transformation finds scale and correlation in the world”, he stated.
The goal is to take the conditions generated within the country to the outside to transform them into concrete economic results. In his words, the aim is to “convert them into trade, investment, and wealth for Argentinians”.
The Government seeks to expand trade agreements
Quirno also defended the economic measures implemented by Milei's administration and pointed out that they have created conditions for greater international integration.
In this regard, he stated that “fiscal balance ordered the base, stability restored predictability, and deregulation freed business capacity”. He also highlighted that “legal stability has made it possible for (businesses) to make decisions for 10, 20, or 30 years.”
According to the chancellor, these changes strengthened “our ability to trade, attract capital, and access opportunities that for years were outside Argentina's reach.”
Finally, Quirno recalled the agreements reached with other blocs and countries, including the one signed with the European Union.
