Martín Guzmán will give a “leading speech” on the international situation at the United Nations

Invited by the United Nations Organization, the former Minister of Economy of the Nation, Martín Guzmán, will speak this Monday at the opening of the panel on the World Economic Situation and Perspectives 2023.

Guzman will give the leading speechor “leading speech” at 11 a.m. in New York, noon in Argentina, which he chose to headline “Addressing the macroeconomic and debt crises after 4 decades of poorly managed globalization, Covid-19 and War.”

Although it is an international forum, Guzmán’s words probably have a different resonance in Argentina, given the abrupt resignation of his administration, last July 2, through a post on the social network Twitter, while the vice president Cristina Kirchner gave a speech in Ensenada.

The resignation surprised the President of the Nation himself and precipitated several weeks of economic turbulence, a continuous rise in the dollar and a record inflation rate of 7.4% per month in July, which barely fell to 7% in August, the first month of administration of the current economy minister Serge Massa, who took over after the brief management of Guzmán’s successor, Silvina Batakis.

Twitter Resignation

Guzmán resigned after fulfilling the goals for the second quarter of the year committed to in the agreement with the International Monetary Fund, but leaving -as members of the subsequent economic team denounced in off-stage- several fiscal skeletons and a tight financial situation, in particular due to the large debt maturities in the local market, which even fueled speculation about a “reprofiling” of domestic liabilities that also contributed to the strong increase in the “blue” dollar and in financial rates, such as the “Cash with Liquidation” and the “dollar bag”.

The current minister, Sergio Massa recalled on Friday that before taking office, on August 3, the stock dollar was trading at 356 pesos and that it fell back to between 296 and 298 on Friday, September 30after, through the mechanism of the “soybean dollar”, Economy managed to unlock the exports of the soybean complex, which last month liquidated sales for more than USD 8,120 million.

Guzmán’s presentation at the UN will focus on the global situation and the challenges faced by emerging economies, including those of Latin America and the Southern Cone of the region, to deal with the impact of rising interest rates on the economies developed, particularly, by the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank.

manhattan blues

Guzmán lived for several years in New York, where he was an academic disciple of Joseph Stiglitz, professor at Columbia University, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, who was the one who recommended Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner. The vice president, however, became a public critic of Guzmán’s measures and his negotiation with the IMF after the government’s defeat in the Simultaneous and Mandatory Open Primaries (PASO) of September 2021, which led to the “Plan Platita” with which the government discounted differences in the legislative elections of November of the same year, but could not reverse the result, which, however, was celebrated as “a victory” with a call and an act in Plaza de Mayo.

Amid such criticism, however, Guzmán received the support of another of his international supporters, Pope Francis, who named him a new member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciencesinstituted in January 1994 by John Paul II and dedicated to promoting the study and progress of the social sciences, especially economics, sociology, law and political science.

friends and associates

More recently, at the end of July, still in the midst of the exchange tremor, Guzmán appeared in a meeting with Antonio AracreCEO of Syngenta, with whom he spoke of “the need to build consensus for a stronger Argentina, with less inequality and more opportunities to continue growing,” as Aracre himself tweeted.

Guzmán accessed the public function from an academic springboard, but shows a persistent political ambition that in his management as minister underpinned the still representative of Argentina in the IMF, Sergio Chodos.

The relationship with the Fund, however, was one of the main sources of criticism from Kirchnerism, which voted against the agreement negotiated by Guzmán and even let it be known that the former minister “lied” to them about various points of the negotiation with the agency. , which finally led to the agreement reached last January and whose goals were ratified by Batakis and Guzmán, who succeeded him in office.

Another criticism of Guzmán by Kirchnerism was his insistence on increasing public service rates, particularly electricity and gas, to reduce the weight of subsidies in fiscal accounts. When Guzmán left the scene, however, Kirchnerism did not resist or criticize the much higher increases ordered – but not yet fully implemented – by the current economic leadership.

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