prime minister Pablo Kirno arrived yesterday washington state, usa, This is to advance trade agreement negotiations. He is accompanied by the Secretary of Production; Pablo Lavigne and the Under Secretary of Foreign Trade, Carolina Cuenca.
The topic was animated by a roundtable with private sector representatives from the Meridian International Center, an organization specializing in diplomacy and government relations, overseen today by Deborah Rehr, a New York Stock Exchange veteran with experience in emerging markets and a former deputy assistant to the U.S. Trade Representative.
“Closed”, assured a very highly informed source investigated by “El Chronista”.
At 3 p.m., he met with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Lee Greer. Gurría’s office was responsible for drafting a document detailing why Argentina (among other countries) was included in the tariff hike.
In the afternoon, officials held a dinner party. council of americathe space where President Javier Millay and Economy Minister Luis Caputo held meetings with investors last week.
On Thursday, they will have lunch at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and meet with the Secretary of State in the afternoon. marco rubio Then return to Argentina.
agreement
Hopes for this deal remain high, but let’s be clear that the news was expected in the week before the election. It has since been closed and is awaiting an official announcement.
Kirno and Lavigne’s visit reignited hopes that the agreement would eventually become known, and the business community assured them they would return. “The agreement was under his arm.” Ambassador of Argentina to the United States, alec oxenfordstrengthened this argument by ensuring that the agreement was effectively concluded and all that remained was to implement it.
The impending agreement has reignited rumors of another visit. Those close to Casa Rosada assured that the US Treasury Secretary: scott bessent, I plan to visit Argentina by the end of the year.. There was a strong expectation that it would take place after the change of parliament on December 10th, but the private sector is preparing to accept it in the coming weeks.
From the trip I took Millais and Trump on, it became clear that several products would be included in this plan. steel and aluminumthese were included in the segment with the highest tariff (50%) as they are within the list of products related to national security.
Companies are also waiting for news on patents, with particular interest from research institutes and the agricultural sector. Another focus is the expansion of the Hilton quota, which determines the number of kilograms of meat that can be exported to the United States (scheduled to be expanded to 80,000 tons). Although this expansion was already expected, questions center on Argentina’s production capacity.
Another goal focuses on some mechanism that allows the system to be streamlined. infrastructure investment This is exactly what is about to happen with new tenders, especially for trains, by foreign companies.
The report prepared by the Trade Representative highlighted the existence of customs duties imposed by Argentina, criticizing the prepayment and withholding of value-added tax on imported goods, the ban (already abolished) on used capital goods and remanufactured products (such as car parts), the difficulty in accessing the exchange market, or the existence of the PAIS tax. Many of these obstacles have been removed.
A key point during negotiations is patents. Mr. Greer’s portfolio cited La Salada in that framework, arguing that there are significant patent restrictions for innovators in the pharmaceutical and agricultural sectors, significant delays in the approval of drugs and biosimilars, that regulations provide “insufficient protection against unfair commercial exploitation and unauthorized disclosure of data,” insufficient protection of geographic data, and the presence of counterfeit and pirated products.