Facundo Iglesia 
Unión por la Patria’s left-wing presidential candidate in the primaries Juan Grabois met United States Ambassador to Argentina Marc Stanley on Wednesday morning, one month after publicly declining the US official’s invitation to the embassy and calling it a “ritual of submission.” Instead, Grabois said he would only meet Stanley if the encounter happened in the candidate’s office — a condition Stanley agreed to.
According to minutes of the meeting released by Grabois on his website, the social leader and the ambassador spoke about Argentina’s loan with the IMF, the United States’ support for Jujuy governor Gerardo Morales, US economic sanctions in the region, and the United States Chamber of Commerce in Argentina (AmCham)’s “meddling” in Argentine politics, among other topics.
Grabois’ running mate Paula Abal Medina, Stanley’s political advisor Rob Allison and political attaché Victoria Tyszka Cedeño were also in the meeting.
When asked about the accuracy of the minutes published by Grabois, an embassy spokesperson referred the Herald to a tweet published by the ambassador in which he called the conversation “engaging.”
According to Grabois, Stanley expressed concern about poverty in Argentina, something the candidate contended the United States of being “co-responsible” for due to its role in the record-high loan the country took with the IMF in 2018. Grabois also demanded “foreign debt relief” but Stanley said that the responsibility for the loan belongs to Argentina “in full,” according to the minutes.
In the meeting, the social leader also accused AmCham of meddling in the country’s politics and running an “illegitimate lobby” against certain bills, like a law on package recycling Grabois is pushing for. Stanley said he did not know about AmCham’s alleged interference in Argentine politics.
Grabois’ website also claimed that Stanley described certain statements regarding Argentina’s natural resources by US Southern Command General Laura Richardson as “unfortunate.” In April, Richardson had spoken about Latin America’s “rich resource and rare earth elements” and said “we have the Amazon,” and “we have 31% of the world’s freshwater in this region.”
Her comments were heavily criticized on social media for seemingly referring to the region’s natural resources as belonging to the US.
In a press release, Grabois said that his initial refusal to meet with Stanley and later decision to summon him to his office “is a small example of how national dignity is defended.” He also spoke, without naming them, about his competitors in the elections, whom he called “lapdogs.”
All of the other main presidential candidates — Unión por la Patria’s Sergio Massa, Juntos por el Cambio’s Patricia Bullrich and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, La Libertad Avanza’s Javier Milei — had already met with Stanley.
“Rome does not pay traitors, Washington does not pay suck-ups,” he said. “A multipolar world is possible if we do not admit any form of colonialism from any power”
According to Grabois, Stanley gifted him some thermos flasks, which the social leader said would give to “groups that work with homeless people.”
