ARGENTINA'S PRESUMPTIVE NEXT PRESIDENT: OPEN TO A

C O N F I D E N T I A L BUENOS AIRES 001777

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

NSC FOR DAN FISK

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/05/2017
TAGS: PREL PGOV AR
SUBJECT: ARGENTINA'S PRESUMPTIVE NEXT PRESIDENT: OPEN TO A
REAPPROACHMENT WITH THE UNITED STATES?

Classified By: Classified by Ambassador E. Anthony Wayne
for reasons (B) and (D).

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Summary
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1. (C) Cristina Kirchner appears headed to be Argentina,s
next President. While she will not likely break
significantly from the policies of her husband, it looks like
she will be much more interested in international affairs and
more attentive to relations with other countries, including
the United States. Cristina Kirchner is politically left of
center, but she also seems both more committed to principles
than her husband, including support for human rights and
democracy. She has recently expressed publicly favorable
views of some aspects of the United States, including its
universities and its democratic institutions. Senator
Kirchner has also gone out of her way on several occasions to
seek out the Ambassador, something which her husband has
never done. She publicly recognizes Argentina,s need for
foreign investment and its potential niche in high tech and
culture industries while defending protecting domestic
industry. It is not clear, however, how well she understands
what is needed to attract and maintain international
investment or to manage the challenges of Argentina,s
economic &model8 which she will face her first year in
office. She is critical of certain U.S. policies, including
our approach to Iraq, Guantanamo and the Middle East peace
process. Nevertheless, Cristina Kirchner is our likely next
interlocutor as leader of Argentina and she is signaling an
openness distinct from that of her husband. We should look
for opportunities to help open the door to better
communications and relations when she visits New York in
September and, later this year, if she wins the October 28
presidential elections as expected. End Summary.

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Status Quo: Distance from the United States
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2. (C) Foreign policy, in general, and U.S.-Argentine
relations, in particular, have been put on a back burner by
President Kirchner for the past couple of years. Practical
cooperation continues, but if the relationship appears to
assume too high of a profile, Kirchner pulls it back.
Kirchner's focus on domestic politics is longstanding but
much of his approach to capping US-Argentine relations seems
rooted in his decision to rely on Hugo Chavez for financing
of Argentine bonds and other commercial opportunities.
Kirchner also seeks to exploit the very high levels of
anti-American sentiment evident in Argentina, which makes
occasional blasts at the United States a political asset in
his view. However, this distancing from the USG and ties to
Chavez have come under heightened scrutiny and criticism in
recent months. Simultaneously, there are signs that
presidential candidate and first lady Cristina Kirchner seeks
more dynamic and multifaceted relations with other countries,
including the United States. Only time will tell, but a
positive evolution in Senora Kirchner,s thinking seems the
best hope in the near term for a more positive overall cast
to bilateral relations.

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Keep it Low Profile
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3. (C) During the Ambassador,s first ten months in
Argentina, we have encountered a great deal of good will at
ministerial levels and below for serious cooperation with the
USG. Even when there are differences, most officials seek to
work these out in private. However, there are clear limits
that ministers feel about how enthusiastic they can be in

public, and President Kirchner has regularly chosen to pull
things back a notch if it appears in the press that
U.S.-Argentine relations are getting too positive. A close
advisor to Cristina Kirchner told Ambassador recently that
President Kirchner made a decision almost two years ago to
keep bilateral relations &low-profile8 and has acted to
maintain them in that state since. He is very happy with
on-going cooperation on security matters and very much wants
more U.S. investment, but he is not interested in any higher
profile government-to-government relations, according to this
contact. Rather than focusing on trying to arrange
ministerial visits or contacts between now and the October 28
Argentine elections, this advisor said the embassy should
work on student, sports, and cultural exchanges that chip
away at anti-Americanism here and prepare for what will be a
more open-minded approach by Cristina Kirchner.

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Kirchner's Anti-Americanism: Financial and Political Motives
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4. (C) Other officials and observers have repeatedly argued
that Kirchner sees the importance of the Chavez connection in
the Venezuelans' willingness to serve as a intermediary to
sell Argentine bonds internationally, as a source of
commercial opportunities for Argentine business, and as a
potential source of energy supplies and investment capital.
"It's all about access to resources" one top diplomat told
the Ambassador recently. For Kirchner, the domestic cost of
this policy until recently has been low. In fact, he
benefited domestically. Many appreciated him bringing home
economic benefits and savored his willingness to show a bit
of distance from the United States, given the region-leading
levels of antipathy for U.S. policies registered in
Argentina. The high point of this tilt is when he agreed to
Chavez's request in March to organize a rally in Buenos Aires
while President Bush visited Uruguay. Yet that event, where
Chavez lashed out at the United States, generated much
critical comment locally of Kirchner's actions.

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Isolation and Scandal
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5. (C) Kirchner plays to a domestic audience, paying little
attention to the international repercussions of his
statements or actions. He recently questioned the profit
levels of Spanish companies operating in Argentina, accused
major German banks of conspiring against Argentina, and
continued to strike out at the IMF as French IMF candidate
Dominique Strauss-Kahn visited to win support to head that
institution. In recent months, however, several analysts and
editorialists from the right have begun to pound away at the
costs of Kirchner,s neglect of relations with most
countries, including the United States, and cozying up to
Venezuela. They have noted that international visitors have
been avoiding Argentina, leaving it isolated and with good
ties to less than a handful of countries (Venezuela, Brazil,
Spain and Bolivia). Worse yet, they argue, Argentina has
become increasingly irrelevant because of Kirchner,s
international tactics, including his economic reliance on
Chavez. In much more guarded tones, top Argentine diplomats
have lamented the same trends and revealed the hope for a
change after October's elections. The August $800,000
&suitcase8 scandal has led to a flood of sharp questioning
about the close ties to Chavez.

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Starting to Reach Out
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6. (C) Cristina Kirchner began signaling several months ago
that she wants to use a different approach in dealing with
other countries. Her recent travel to Spain, Mexico and the
United States, upcoming trips to Germany, Austria, Brazil,
Chile and the United States for the UNGA opening, and her
meetings with international business groups are intended to
send the message that she will pay more attention to
relations with other countries and be more open to listening,
senior Foreign Ministry and those close to her say. They
present this new approach as post-recovery Argentina being in
a position where it can again focus more attention on
international affairs: Argentina has changed, so our
interactions can change. They say this is a new opportunity
for Argentine diplomacy. Clearly, Senator Kirchner also
enjoys international affairs more than her husband. Even an
editor of the highly critical La Nacion daily confided to the
Ambassador last week that he recognizes the possibility that
Cristina Kirchner may accept the importance of listening to
other countries, and the September 5 edition of La Nacion
gave very positive coverage of the opening event in her
September 4th speech to a large business audience.

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Sending Signals to the United States
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7. (C) Among her outreach, the Senator has chosen to include
signals to the United States. She recently made a point of
welcoming, with a significant speech on education, the
decision of New York University to reopen its campus in
Buenos Aires, publicly praising aspects of the U.S.
university and research system and notably seeking out the
U.S. Ambassador after the speech. She did the same thing
after her speech to the Council of America,s conference here
(which was widely commented in the press),and she has chosen
to include in her campaign web site a photo and reference to
her last meeting with the Ambassador. These are all steps
that we would not expect from her husband, President
Kirchner. Similarly, the Senator has a full agenda for her
September visit to New York during the UNGA opening, which
includes meetings with U.S. businesses, bankers, and
educators among others.

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Left of Center, But ...
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8. (C) A very close associate of the Senator told the
Ambassador that she sincerely enjoys the United States and
particularly has valued her opportunities to meet with
university students. He notes that she will be open to
expanding ties with the United States, but also cautions that
she has always been left-of-center and often argued
strenuously for principled positions in the past. He and
others say that this can be both good and bad from a U.S.
perspective: on the one hand, she often has argued strongly
in favor of protecting human rights and democracy, while her
husband has been less concerned with principle and more
interested in concrete benefits. Thus, she is credited with
bolstering his position vis-a-vis a human rights case with
Cuba involving a split family. Although she boldly asserted
to the Ambassador that Venezuela had no restrictions on press
freedom and has defended Chavez in public, she is also widely
rumored to be less positive in private on the relationship
with Chavez than her husband. (Earlier this year, she
accepted an invitation to address Venezuela's umbrella Jewish
federation, which had expressed concern at Chavez's growing
ties to the Iran regime.) On the other hand, she is very
critical of the U.S. approach in Iraq and at Guantanamo and
frankly raised her views in private with the Ambassador. Her
close associate says that she realizes that being president
will be her first time in an executive position and that she
will need to temper her principled positions with the need to
govern. He says that this is behind both her outreach to
other countries and her calls for a social dialogue and

compact inside Argentina. As one senior Argentine diplomat
put it: she probably feels more at ease with the Democrats in
the United States than the Republicans, but dealing with
governments is what you do when you govern.


9. (C) Similarly, on the economic front, Cristina Kirchner
has been clear that she wants to court international
investors and national business leaders, while defending the
economic &model8 developed by her husband. This vision
includes, for example, fostering both international
investment and a stronger Argentine business community based
in part on protection of some domestic sectors. It is not
clear how she envisions establishing a welcoming investment
climate, fostering a national &bourgeoisie,8 strengthening
Argentina,s high tech sector, protecting its industrial
base, and moving out of the price and inflation challenges
that current economic policies have engendered. The fact
that the Senator includes outreach to international actors
and praises the role of international firms in Argentina is
welcome, even though the practical impact still needs to be
seen. These contradictions were evident in her September 4th
90-minute talk on economic matters before 500 national and
international business representatives. Nonetheless, the
business audience was at least as positively impressed by her
call for dialogue and cooperation as it was critical of
shortcomings in her specific comments.

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Conclusion
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10. (C) Although we can expect much continuity in a Cristina
administration, it is also quite likely that Cristina will
seek some areas where she can distinguish her administration
from her husband's. Given her greater interest in travel and
world affairs, we expect she will pay more attention to
foreign policy and international relations than her husband
has. Her desire to dabble in policy or strut on the world
stage may have to give way to other demands on her time, and
it is quite possible that she will be consumed by one crisis
after another. We do see hopeful signs, however, that she is
interested in improving U.S-Argentine relations. That said,
we harbor no illusions about the limited extent of her
pro-U.S. inclinations, and can easily imagine her resorting
to anti-U.S. rhetoric whenever it is to her political
advantage to do so.
WAYNE