Today, President Alberto Fernández and Economy Minister Sergio Massa spoke together in an event one day after Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner gave a speech in La Plata.

Fernández said that the Frente de Todos (FdT) ruling coalition should “stop its infighting.” 

“Ideally, we would like to cut down on the political hubbub, see how the world has changed and focus on building our future,” Fernández said.

For some analysts, the president’s withdrawal from this year’s presidential elections could relieve some of the FdT’s which have potentially contributed to the country’s delicate economic situation.

Fernández also spoke about the need of making Latin America a stronger region. “I spoke about that with Lula [Da Silva, the president of Brazil]. That new world is going to demand food and energy, and we have plenty of that.”

“Economic cycles can change, what does not are the needs of our people,” he added.

The president made these comments at the presentation of the “Irrigated Argentina” plan. The program aims to invest AR$2 billion in technical irrigation and benefit 50,000 farmers. Massa said that the investment will benefit the country’s economy. 

“What we are talking about is how much Argentine labor we sell to the world, and this is also income distribution,” said Massa. “In those arid areas where there must be state investment to increase productive capacity, state intervention is key. There is only one way out for Argentina.”

“We intervene not only when we see four opportunists that want to create economic uncertainty,” Massa said, in line with what the vice president said yesterday in La Plata. “We also intervene to increase farming areas [and] to give added value to our economy.” 

The minister was referencing the run against the peso that took place this week, which took the informal dollar to a record-high AR$497. He was quoting the vicepresident with the words, “four opportunists” (“cuatro vivos,”) which she coined in December 2020 and she repeated yesterday. Kirchner uses the phrase alluding to the unfair wealth distribution during the post-pandemic economic recovery.

This week, Massa announced that the Central Bank intervened in the foreign exchange market to suffocate the currency run, something the IMF agreement forbids from doing, and which the vice president mentioned yesterday.

Massa said that he listened to Kirchner’s speech, in which she mentioned his intervention.

“Yesterday, I was listening to the vice president, who spoke about a new mindset, in a new world and indeed this is a world where, when we talk about foreign trade, we look at our main regional partner, Brazil, as a competitor, but also as an ally.”

The minister also said that Argentina should deepen the “synergy” with China, mentioning the mechanism he established this week that allows companies to pay imports in yuan, and that Kirchner mentioned in her speech yesterday.

“We also have to look at how we can expand our trade and the sale of proteins or specific products of the regional economies based on the good use of this swap or also on the use of this swap to increase investments for the added value of our regional economies,” Massa said.