MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

CFK promises to address “trade wars and guerrillas” in a most civilized and legal way possible

The Argentine president publicly replied to the Obama administration

President Cristina Fernández questioned US president Barack Obama’s recent decision to suspend trade benefits for Argentina, while complaining that “we can’t even manage to get one of our lemons to enter the US market.”

“We have to pay attention to these little trade wars and guerrillas, that we will try to address this in the most civilized and legal way possible” said the Argentine president in reference to the Obama administration’s decision, in a ceremony at the Government House.

Cristina Fernandez then recalled that Argentina has not been able to export beef to the US and that “not even one of our lemons can enter their market,” even though none of those products are part of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program, which waives import duties on thousands of goods from developing countries.

The president also ratified that the goal of her economic model “is growth that includes social inclusion” clarifying that “this isn’t just about any kind of growth.”

“Any kind of growth is not good enough for us. That’s why we keep asking for support from every sector in the country. We have managed to achieve a very important synergy and we will maintain it with a little bit of intelligence. We must not give up whenever we run into tough times” said Cristina Fernandez.

The President’s statements came in response to Barack Obama’s decision on Monday to punish Argentina by suspending trade benefits for the country due to its failure to comply with rulings from the World Bank's International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) that benefit two US corporations.

On Monday the first reaction to the announcement form the Obama administration came form the Foreign Ministry in a statement which regretted the “unilateral decision” and explained that the companies involved in the dispute at ICSID “never accepted the Argentine proposal to solve this dispute according to the rules of the ICSID. Instead, they chose to force us into a ruling that goes against our own legal system”.

Argentina”regrets an attempt to force our country into making a decision that goes against its laws,” the statement read.

“Our nation strongly repudiates the lobbying practices put in place by vulture funds to push the US government into making this decision,” said Argentina.