Latin America
Related: About this forumAs Ivanka Trump visits, U.S. OKs $400 million Argentina highway investment
Source: Reuters
As Ivanka Trump visits, U.S. OKs $400 million Argentina highway investment
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - The United States has approved a $400 million highway investment in Argentina as President Donald Trumps eldest daughter Ivanka Trump visits the South American nation on a wider tour of the region.
Ivanka Trump, a White House adviser, is on a Latin American trip that includes visits to Colombia and Argentinas remote northern province of Jujuy, after which she will leave for neighboring country Paraguay.
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the U.S. governments development finance body, said its directors had approved the financing to expand and upgrade an 876-km (544-mile) toll road stretching from Buenos Aires to the Chilean border to the west of the country.
Safe highways and road networks that support commerce are critical to creating a healthier economy for the people of Argentina, OPIC acting President and Chief Executive David Bohigian said in a statement.
The announcement was made in Jujuy where the U.S. delegation led by Ivanka Trump met with Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie and Minister of Transportation Guillermo Dietrich.
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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-argentina/as-ivanka-trump-visits-u-s-oks-400-million-argentina-highway-investment-idUSKCN1VQ2PQ
riversedge
(70,299 posts)Eugene
(61,945 posts)He offered to subsidize Salvini-led Italy's defiance of EU fiscal limits. He also offered to help Putin with Russia's forest fires. Contrast that with how he treated California.
And besides possible kickbacks, Macri used this well-known compulsion of Cheeto's to manipulate him.
Argentina, as you've heard, is holding elections this year, and Macri's days are very much numbered - thanks to the implosion of his Bush-style debt bubble last year, and near-depression conditions since then.
But what he no doubt told Trump, is that he has "a good chance." And that "greenlighting this project would help get me re-elected."
This, of course, is nonsense: Macri lost the first round in August by 16% - and recent polls show him losing the 2nd round next month by 27%.
If Trump bothered to research the situation, he'd know this. But as you know, 'Trump' and 'research' are two things that rarely if ever meet.
Thanks for finding and posting this, Eugene. Lots going on in Argentina this year.
Botany
(70,581 posts)BTW if they really wanted to spend the money their is a bridge from Cincinnati to KY over the Ohio
River on I 75 that needs works.
* Or connected person
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)This smells like rotten fish all the way.
Okay, so we can assume that there is a desire to soak the people of Argentina for tolls. Notice it is a toll road
Then, we have a deteriorating infrastructure here, (it is very critical in many places) that gets what was it, a -D rating? Then we have a growing crisis of affordable housing with more and more Americans going homeless. Then we have a ridiculous fence that we don't need. Then we have the attempts to gut SNAP when food prices are increasing and people are having a hard enough time as it is, even with SNAP.
Okay, so what's up here? I have nothing against helping other countries, but I don't know about the priorities here and who is going to benefit from the "investment". In fact, I have never heard of OPIC before and had no idea we had a "development finance body" and that term is news to me and WTF and how did that happen and why no investment here? And who is it that gets the return on the investment if this is using taxpayer dollars to finance it?
Gosh, it's like a dimensional shift sometimes into an alternate realty. Excuse my ignorance on this one. Can't keep up.
Whew!
sandensea
(21,664 posts)Trump's old pal, President Mauricio Macri - who's already facing two major scandals involving self-dealing at the toll booth:
Pumping up his own stock price with toll hikes, and then dumping the stock before his 'Macrisis' hit; and a "settlement" involving $500 million in Argentine taxpayer funds, for said firm.
Cheeto must be impressed.
"C'mon, Mauricio! Let me have some of that action!"
Botany
(70,581 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,621 posts)It may take help from outer space to stop these perverts!
Can't believe the former Mayor of Buenos Aires, and current President would have stooped low enough to start pilfering the gleanings made from the toll road industry. Good grief. What a glutton.
sandensea
(21,664 posts)The toll troubles started in 1991, when Menem authorized Argentina's first tollways - and then privatized the service (as concessions).
Like most other privatizations, it was touted as a way to attract foreign capital and spur investment in the country's antiquated infrastructure.
It did attract foreign investment (which the Macri family joined as 7% shareholders in the AuSol toll operator) - but the hundreds of millions generated by tolls (used 730 million times annually in 2018) have not found their way into road investment.
There have been new freeways built since '91, sure - but they were largely taxpayer-funded (or by way of foreign loans).
Under Macri, tolls have risen from an average of 13 pesos to 70 pesos - nearly doubling average wage increases.
Macri sold his 7% share in 2017, after AuSol stock rose by 400%.
Judi Lynn
(160,621 posts)That's a great graphic, in a creepy way. One might wonder if Macri is "connected" to those rude people from Italy.