President Guillermo Lasso traveled last night to Argentina and Uruguay. Every international trip of a President is important if there is a true intention of international politics, which is to prioritize national interests beyond the proximity or ideological distance that governments have. Today’s world makes it so. Between states there are no friendships, but interests, it has often been said. And it is true, even more so when the nations are part of the same region.
The President of the Republic will meet with his counterparts, Alberto Fernández, from Argentina, and Luis Lacalle Pou, from Uruguay. Both are on the opposite shores of ideologies: the first is left-wing populism; the other is from the right. At the polls, he declared the end of the three-term hegemony of the Broad Front, the most democratic experience of the left in the region, with Tabaré Vázquez and José Mujica, when the winds of 21st-century socialism raged.
Uruguayan democracy is exceptional in the region; Corruption rates are radically lower than the rest of Latin America. 73% of the population does not feel that governments pocket money from the public treasury. In Ecuador, according to Statista, only 36%. In the Montevideo press it is stated that the priorities of the meeting between Lasso and Lacalle Pou will be the promotion of SMEs and the fight against corruption.
On the other side of the Río de la Plata, in Buenos Aires, the media have not said much. Fernández lives difficult moments. He has 20% positive image. Inflation is 55%, the highest in the entire region. Political tensions are constant and a libertarian appears as a strong presidential candidate who even promised to disappear the Ministry of Education. Despite this, Argentina continues to be a strong regional player.
The Uruguayan is ideologically closer to Lasso; Argentina, on the other hand, is related to Correismo and is one of the conspicuous members of the Puebla Group. We will have to see what this trip will leave for the benefit of the three countries.
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