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A US think tank has slammed a bid by a far-right Republican senator to call for sanctions on Argentine officials as yet “another expression of a dangerous addiction to sanctions and meddling” that remains a cornerstone of US foreign policy.
Hours prior to US President Joe Biden’s meeting last week with his Argentinian counterpart, Alberto Fernandez, the hawkish Texas Senator Ted Cruz introduced a bill that seeks to impose sanctions on a number of Argentine officials associated with the ruling center-left administration, Quincy Institute reported Monday in its online magazine Responsible Statecraft.
According to the report, among those targeted in the legislation is Argentina’s former president (2007-2015) and current vice resident Cristina Fernandez de Kircher, noting that Cruz described Kirchner in the bill as a “deeply corrupt politician who has undermined Argentina’s rule of law and political institutions”.
The hawkish US lawmaker also accused the Argentinian official of “undermining American security interests in Latin America by placing Argentina’s institutions at the service of what he claimed Iran’s terrorism campaign,” the report added.
It noted that Republican Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, who chairs the House subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, will lead the anti-Argentine effort in the US House of Representatives and reportedly intends to introduce a similar bill in the lower chamber.
The report further stated that while the passage of the bill appears unlikely, the legislative move will please other hawkish American lawmakers “who hold Latin America’s leftist governments in deep contempt.”
The Argentinian president, meanwhile, dismissed Cruz’s legislative ploy as insignificant, calling the Texas senator a “marginal figure”.
While blasting the legislative stunt by the Texas senator as another indicator of Washington’s “unhealthy addiction” to sanctions and foreign interference, the magazine insisted that such efforts remain the “cornerstone of the US establishment’s foreign policy thinking when it comes to perceived adversaries abroad.”
