AN: What do you think about the IV Summit of the Americas?
Dr. Arnaud: What I am going to say is the following: the IV Summit of the Americas is going to be held now. This IV Summit of the Americas has been scheduled since the first summit in Miami in 1994 to fundamentally and mainly sign the FTAA. The FTAA is not going to be signed. The FTAA is dying. And it is dying because it is a very pretentious project of integration of 34 countries of America. As I told you, Cuba, of course, does not affect the issue, right?
34 countries in America with big differences, with big problems. You cannot compare, for example, a country like the United States of America, which is the most important and richest country in the world, or which is supposed to be the richest in the world, which is not true, with Haiti, which is practically the poorest country in the world.
In an America of 34 countries, where there are great internal political problems, we see it in Colombia where there is practically a civil war, in Venezuela with the government of Chavez, with very particular ideas, the indigenism of the Andean countries. Our own country with the problems we have had lately, two months or more dedicated to internal politics, to the elections, where the politics and the parties we have are not clear.
AN: How close are we to integration?
Dr. Arnaud: That is, there can be no integration. Fundamentally, what is integration based on? On a nimus societyIntegration is a society, a society of parts, in all parts of the world. In a society it has to be carried out fundamentally with the spirit of society. If there is no spirit of society, there is no such society. Because you and I can sign a partnership agreement, but then you do what you want without consulting me, without informing me, and I do what I want, without consulting and informing you. It is a society that does not work. There is no spirit of society, which is what happens, among other things, in our MERCOSUR.
Countries, especially Brazil, which is the dominant and not hegemonic country, act according to their national interest. All countries act, especially the important countries, I'm talking about Chile, I'm talking about Brazil, I'm talking about all the countries in the northern hemisphere, they act on the basis of their national interest, which they turn into state policies. There are countries like Argentina, where unfortunately no one talks about the national interest. If not, I'll ask you in this campaign that just took place, which candidate, name me one, talked about Argentina's national interest and state policies. None.
AN: Can we say that the FTAA is far away?
Dr. Arnaud: The FTAA is dying. The FTAA is dying because of the enormous differences that exist, the political, social and economic problems that exist in the various countries, the great differences, I am giving you the extreme of the USA and Haiti. And all are countries that seek development. Ultimately and in the first instance, what is sought with integration? What are countries seeking? Development and the well-being of the population. If you do not achieve development and the well-being of the population, integration has no reason to exist. And the FTAA was proposed by the USA in a historical sequence; note that it is the same aspiration that the USA had in the first Pan-American conference in 1889/90, which proposed an American customs union and did not work, and it did not work, among other things, because the main opposition of Argentina with its close associates, Roque Sáenz Peña and Manuel Quintana, who pointed out problems and the things that existed to prevent reaching a type of integration. Now, 100 years later, the US is insisting on the issue and is failing again and is replacing it, as they have said in no uncertain terms, with so-called free trade agreements. With free trade agreements that are not really free trade. Free in quotation marks because free trade agreements, as we know, are preferential agreements between the countries that make them against third countries. So they are not free trade agreements, they are agreements called free trade agreements. The US trade representative said that he was managing 47 free trade agreements. And recently, two or three days ago, we read in the newspapers that the American representative for this conference, the IV American conference, said, if they do not want to deal with the FTAA, we will continue with our free trade agreements.
AN: So, will they continue with bilateral agreements?
Dr. Arnaud: And free trade agreements are what is happening in America. Look, on the one hand we have a very important and important one, which is NAFTA, the agreement between Canada, the US and Mexico. But be careful with NAFTA, the free trade agreement, no, the customs union, the free trade agreement, because among other things Canada said, there is no way we would have made a customs union agreement with the giant that is the US, because we would have been very harmed. And Mexico, which made a free trade agreement, in NAFTA is the free trade agreement with the US, is trying at all costs to get out of that dependency by making free trade agreements with a number of countries in Europe, in America, and in Asia in order to diversify. And Chile is doing the same, Chile for us, I believe, is an exemplary country. Chile has made agreements, people get confused and say, 'well, it has made agreements with NAFTA, and it has not made agreements with NAFTA,' Chile has made free trade agreements with Canada separately, with the US separately and with Mexico separately. Yes, with the three NAFTA countries but not separately with NAFTA. And besides, right now, for example, a free trade agreement is being negotiated with China and it has free trade agreements with the European Union, and with a number of countries. It is exemplary. And we continue to die in MERCOSUR, which was poorly done from the beginning, because it was done as a customs union, trying to copy the European Union, at that time, the European economic community, and Europe was something else, another origin. It was coming out of a war, a terrible war, where millions and thousands of problems had died, and also on the eve of a conflict against the USSR. And well, helped by the US, which had to change its policy, a completely different policy to the one it had after the first war, and in this case to help Europe to try to hunt down, so to speak, Germany and France, but there were more wars in Europe; that was what Europe wanted, enough of wars, war was coming, Napoleonic wars, the war between France and Germany, then the first war, then the second war, enough, wars, death, destruction and occupation. And that is not the precedent for our MERCOSUR.
AN: What type of economic integration is best for Argentina with MERCOSUR and the United States?
Dr. Arnaud: A free trade agreement, I have no doubt. I have published my book on MERCOSUR, the EU, NAFTA and the regional integration processes for years, years. I have also written a number of articles, a number of newspapers, magazines, and I have given lectures in La Nación in particular, where for more than 10 years I have been saying, "I am in favor of MERCOSUR, but against the way MERCOSUR is." The customs union is deindustrializing and denationalizing us. And I ask, can someone refute this, in the 14 years of negotiations that MERCOSUR has been underway, has it developed Argentina? Has it brought well-being to its population? If they say yes, I will keep quiet. It has favored, yes, it has favored Brazil, the most important country, which has given, first, because of its territory, because of its number of inhabitants, it is a much larger market than ours, second because it has a very clear national policy, very clear about what the Brazilian national interest is, whatever government they have, whether it is called Cardoso, Lula, whatever. Like the Chileans, they know perfectly well what they want and where they are going, with their difficulties like all countries have. So I would like to see Mercosur refounded into a free trade zone. And as for the FTAA, it is dying and will die like the FTAA, as a continental integration of 34 countries.
AN: Do you think the topic will not be taken up again?
Dr. Arnaud: No. The subject can be taken up again, yes, as here, MERCOSUR is 14 years old and will continue to be around for another 14 years, stumbling and dying, but well, as a dying person, in a coma, you can live a long time. And if they want to take up the FTAA and let them take it up again, but it will not become the FTAA. Apart from something else, the incentives of the FTAA, if one reads the declarations and the action plan of the FTAA of '94, they have been completely forgotten, they have been transformed into nothing more than commercial negotiations. The only thing that is talked about is commercial negotiations and trade, patents, this and that, everything that favors the US and among other things because the US is not interested in Latin America. What interests you about Latin America? Yes, some things. You are interested in Latin America not being destabilized, in being calm. How? You are not interested, but in being calm, poor, rich, hungry, rich, with inequalities, but calm. Second, you are interested in selling your products, and third, you are interested in energy and eventually its hydraulic wealth, but nothing else. The well-being and development of Latin America are of no interest to you. When have you supported MERCOSUR? When have you supported the Andean Pact?
Note that the IV Summit is already a failure because it will not fulfill its purpose, which was the signing of the FTAA. So, what will happen? Or what has to happen? A void must be filled, and with what will a void be filled? And of course, with very important issues, no one can deny it, and which attract unemployment, hunger, poverty, governability, which are nice words, but I tell you, with a declaration from Mar del Plata, will they give you a job? Will they change your situation? No, each country has to reform its institutions, it has to end corruption or limit the high level of corruption that they have, each country has to be credible, so that investments come. If there are no investments, and when I speak of investments, in the case of Argentina, do you think that money is needed in Argentina? There is no need for money in Argentina. There is Argentine and foreign money. Argentina is outside, there are 120, 140, 150 billion dollars of Argentines abroad, which do not come because of lack of confidence. Besides, there is plenty of capital in the world that is looking for where to place itself, of course, to make its profits, logically, not to give away to anyone. And if there were credibility here, or there were justice, there would be confidence, but the capital comes in droves, but it does not come. You have to see it from a personal point of view, do you put money where you do not have confidence? You do not put it. So you do not create jobs.
AN: Would you invest in the country?
Dr. Arnaud:I don't. First because I don't have money. But second, I speak in general terms, let's be realistic, anywhere in the world, it's not just Argentina, would you invest in Haiti? Because you don't like Haiti? No, it doesn't bother me at all, would you invest in Colombia, where there is a civil war? I don't invest, would you invest in Iraq? Which is being devastated, occupied and destroyed, and no, I go where I see a beginning, it even scares me to say, would you invest in the US with the deficits it has and all that? Well, but the money goes to the US for lack of an alternative I would say, nothing more, but it is very complicated. The money that exists, that exists in Argentina, and that exists in the world, is distrustful. Capital is distrustful, if it doesn't have, if it doesn't believe in the country, if it doesn't believe in the institutions, if it doesn't believe in justice, it doesn't go. So when it is said, "So that there is no hunger", but so that there is no hunger they have to correct things, not the Mar del Plata declaration. Now, one thing, I am president of the Argentine Academy of Environmental Sciences, I am also a member of the Academy of Geography, I am an academic and consultant of the National Academy of Sciences of Buenos Aires. So, this means that we are especially interested in the preservation and quality of the environment, with all these problems that exist. On the one hand, natural disasters, the tsunami, earthquakes in India and Pakistan, look at Katrina, now the latest hurricane, floods, but apart from foot and mouth disease, four years ago we had outbreaks of foot and mouth disease here that cost us at least a billion dollars. It is currently costing Brazil over 1.8 billion dollars. There is the problem of bird flu. Argentina has been an international pioneer in the field of preserving environmental quality. We proposed, for example, within the framework of the idea that a gap must be filled in this conference since the FTAA is not going to be signed, to propose that a firm declaration be made for the preservation of environmental quality and to convene a continental conference to take measures to preserve environmental quality. And by preserving environmental quality, by trying to prevent foot-and-mouth disease, swine fever, etc., that creates work. There is production, there is export, there is consumption and that creates jobs. On the other hand, an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease causes unemployment and a lack of exports, so the environment must be preserved to avoid all of these things. That is, one of the ways to create jobs is to preserve the quality of the environment, but not just to have nice trees or things like that, which is very interesting. If not because it generates and preserves sources of employment. How much does this outbreak of foot and mouth disease cost Brazil and how many unemployed people does it cause, just as it caused us 4 years ago? And I'm not saying that a mad cow disease wouldn't appear; if it did, forget about Argentine livestock farming. How many unemployed people would it mean if the countryside collapsed and how many losses would it mean for the state that it will not have money to help. That's why I'm telling you, there are many things to do to eliminate hunger, to create jobs, and to foster development.
A country like Argentina has to be a country open to the world, a country that must insert itself into the world and study all the international markets without any kind of discrimination, including the Asian markets, which are emerging as the markets of the present and the future. And in a way, not only producers of grains and meat but also of added value. But not only added value. Added value means a greater human contribution, of work, of added intelligence, added capacity, that is, industrialized products, industrialized meat, industrialized cereals, etc., etc., good presentation and inserting them into the world already with another type of technology. Look, countries like who would say, like South Korea, the great country of computer technology, South Korea. Well, why can't we have different types of technology? Of course, we need investments and above all, going out into the world and having a policy. For example, I ask you, what do we have a policy on? Do we have an educational policy? Do we have an export policy? Do we have an environmental policy? What policies do we have? Not all countries in the world, or rather not all countries in the world, but the countries that are moving forward fundamentally study and consider what their national interest is and from there they make their permanent State policy.
AN: Who can serve as an example for us?
Dr. Arnaud: For us, a real example is Chile. Chile is a small country with a small population and few resources, but it has developed and is developing very well. It has invested 5 or 6000 billion dollars in Argentina, when it should be the other way around, because if we compare ourselves with the United States, we are wasting time. We cannot compare ourselves with the United States. If we compare ourselves with the European Union, we are wasting time. Brazil has 9 million km² and 180 million inhabitants, it is a market. If you say 180 million inhabitants, but take out 100 million that don't count, well, yes, but there are 80 left. We are 36. What is Chile doing instead? Chile is poor, or was poor, and is no longer poor. It was poor with a left-wing government, a right-wing government, a military government, or whatever government it was. It is Chile, fundamentally it is Chile.
AN: How are state policies generated?
Dr. Arnaud: You have to be very patriotic to do that, you have to think about the country, you have to think about the development of the country. The two fundamental things for a government are the development of a country and the well-being of the population. Everything else is a Chinese tale. It's like a family. If you form a family, what are you pursuing? The development of your family, yours, your husband's, your children's. That's why you send them to school, that's why you give them a career, so that they develop and have well-being, so that their home doesn't lack anything, so that they are happy, have good relationships, don't have conflicts, are healthy, develop well-being. If that isn't achieved, when they talk to me about the integration of MERCOSUR, I keep asking myself: in fourteen years, what development has it given to the country? What well-being has it given to the population? It denationalized and deindustrialized it.
Is the FTAA possible, an integration or a society with a spirit of society of 34 countries that are part of America? Or the asymmetries that exist or the political problems of each one, Bolivia has the problem of indigenism, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, the problem, as I say, civil war, let's call it civil war in Colombia that is divided, a Mr. Chavez who now comes with very outdated ideas.
A country like Venezuela, which is having a huge oil income, could develop this country, which is a large and important country. What does it do? Buy 100.000 machine guns from the Soviet Union, 16 M16 planes, patrol boats, what is all that for? Why doesn't it develop its country? It loses the opportunity like we did when the Second World War ended, when Perón said, "I walked by the Central Bank and came across the gold bars and what did I do?" Instead of capitalizing the country, which was undercapitalized like all countries after the war, I bought scrap from railroads and we didn't capitalize ourselves in any way.
It is difficult... (He remains silent). Yes, it is difficult, but it is not that difficult. It is a question of will, of political decision. A country like Argentina at this moment has a great opportunity, in the sense that it has good harvests. When did we have 82 million tons of cereals? When? It is the first time. We are increasing our stock of cattle, etc., because the world market is asking for it. It is not enough to sell meat, it is not enough to sell soybeans. We have to industrialize. Added value is not enough, but rather added value of intelligence in the products. But if we dedicate ourselves to politics and we are already talking about 2007, well... What is the policy for the development of the country and the well-being of the population? For now, we are doing very well internally because with the sales and exports that we are making, the government has a large income from withholdings and other things. When have we had the fiscal surplus that we have at this moment?
AN: Do you consider the withholdings to be positive?
Dr. Arnaud: No, it is the only country in the world that, instead of promoting exports, lives off of tax withholdings.
AN: The Government not only maintains them, but also justifies the measure, considering it part of the economic plan.
Dr. Arnaud: But that is not an economic plan, that is just an income plan, as we have now gone up to 82 million tons of grain, and they are sold, there is international demand, it is the great opportunity to continue searching and not depend on whether, for example, today China buys our soybeans but tomorrow it will no longer be a buyer because it will produce the soybeans itself, we must try to avoid dependence. When you have more than 30% of your exports in a single market, you have to look for another one, otherwise you become dependent. Let's look for other markets like Mexico or Chile does. Chile has a number of free trade zone agreements with half the world. Chile did it with the United States, with Mexico, with Canada, with the European Union, now with China, with Japan. It goes everywhere opening its markets. You go anywhere in the world and you find Chilean wines, and why? Because they need it, because they are poor, or were poor. Now they export capital and come here and buy vineyards because they can't afford it. They have invested 6000 billion dollars in Argentina. This is an example.
Until we have a State policy… (He remains silent.) We have no policy and I wonder what we have policy on, what is the national policy on education, on health, on foreign policy, on what?
Everyone listens to a speech by Bush, a speech by Blair, by Berlusconi, Brazil, the national interest of the country is this, when do you hear an Argentine politician say whatever you want when talking about the national interest?
Furthermore, one starts something and the other ends something else, there is no continuity.
There is no clear state policy, even in those matters that are in the constitution, for example the environmental issue, the environmental issue has already been included in the Constitution of 94, state policy, article 41 of the National Constitution. But, what development has that policy that is in the CN?; Why does Argentina not emphasize that issue? , on that subject that interests us all, to standardize health ideas between neighboring countries so that there is no foot-and-mouth disease, so that what you read in today's newspaper doesn't happen, that Paraguay has just burned 20 cows that were smuggled in from Brazil to avoid foot-and-mouth disease, all of that has to be coordinated between countries because the issue of preserving the quality of the environment is of such international importance because pollution does not recognize its borders, you cannot stop the atmosphere, you cannot say this atmosphere is Chilean, here we have a border, point, line, point, line, and it cannot pass from Chile to here, no, the atmosphere passes, be it from Chile to Argentina, from Argentina to Uruguay, from Uruguay to Brazil and it goes to Africa, migratory birds travel all over the world and international waters, pollution does not recognize steps or borders, plagues are like contagious diseases.
AN: Is this Summit positive?
Dr. Arnaud: It is harmless, for me they are of no importance, it is like a useless cost, because fundamentally what it was called for, which was to sign the FTAA, it is not going to be signed, everything else is to fill a void, that if real solutions are not given; yes, for hunger, governability, poverty, unemployment, it is all very nice but so what, when you want to apply it to the case of Argentina or the case of the country that you mention, if you do not create measures of credibility, if there is no justice and if there are no serious institutions and so on, there is no investment, if there are no investments there is no employment, if agriculture is not promoted, if livestock is not promoted, etc. etc. and if things are not made easier to invent or create something or produce something so that it can be successful and defended, the thing does not work, there has to be incentive, this is the only country in the world that lives off of exports. What is Brazil's policy on this? Right now there are four or five large banks in Brazil, large banks with a lot of activity. What do the Brazilian banks do? They give credit for production in Brazil and credit for export in Brazil, and here they give credit to Argentines so they can buy Brazilian products, to which they gave credit in Brazil so they could make and export them. What do you think?
How many Argentine banks do we have in Brazil? None, Brazil does it, why don't we do it? And if someone tells me it's difficult to set up a bank in Brazil, well then let's put the same difficulties on Brazil here. So don't come to me with difficulties.
All those advertisements you see for refrigerators and cell phones say made in Brazil.
AN: Is it a question of idiosyncrasy?
Dr. Arnaud: No, here we have had good industries, we have had everything, we have very good technicians and very good engineers, now education has fallen terribly, unfortunately, what happens is that the technicians go to Brazil or they go somewhere else where the industries go, because when an industry leaves here, the technicians are taken with them, the Argentine technicians, the Argentine engineers, the Argentine workers are very good, very capable, at least those of my generation... unfortunately there is no appropriate educational policy. In my time, when I was born in Argentina, which was and ceased to be, an Argentina that was promising, education was totally free and excellent and the teachers were very well paid, I went to a very good state primary school, I went to the Buenos Aires National School which was excellent and then I went to college, also free, at the University of Buenos Aires.
AN: What were your studies?
Dr. Arnaud: I first studied Law, then Political Science and then International Relations, then I studied International Relations in London for four years.
My time was excellent, but it is no longer the case. Other countries, like those in Africa, are trying to grow one day. We were and then we are no longer. That's the bad thing about Argentina. I'll give you an example that you see every day if you walk down Florida Street. In 1908, when London, England, was the capital of the world, it was the time of the British Empire, the time of Queen Victoria. Not now, when it is in full decline. Harrods, the most important store in the world, said, "Let's see, let's open a store somewhere in the world. Where do we open it?" Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Are these the countries of the future? The United States?
In Europe, in Berlin, in Rome, in Paris? No, we are going to put it in Buenos Aires, in the capital and the country of the future, the country with the most future. Today you pass through Florida and Harrods is the symbol of the Argentina that was promising, it is closed there.
AN: Finally, can we be optimistic about Argentina?
Dr. Arnaud: Yes, we must be very optimistic, there is a solution, I am not saying that this is over, today we have a great opportunity, when have we had 82, 84 million tons of grain? You read yesterday's La Nación (30/10/05), how the fields have increased in price, now raising cattle, etc., etc. We are now selling 800 million dollars in meat exports. We are doing well, money is coming in by the bucketful. It is poorly distributed, everything is poorly done, that is another issue. We have a future. We must not be pessimistic. It is a blessed country.
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