Globalization and integration in Argentina
Globalization as we think of it today permeated Argentina in the 1990s after several years of severe economic crisis and coping with the legacy of a military regime that sanctioned the murder of over 30,000 “subversives”. Subcontinental integration was one way to address these problems. Argentina’s 1985 accord with Brazil laid diplomatic groundwork for the foundation of the Southern Cone Common Market, known by its Spanish acronym, MERCOSUR. Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay were the original 1991 treaty signatories. The agreement, which became operational in 1995, centered on reducing trade barriers among member states and consolidating regime democratization.1 It also harmonized external tariffs and internal trade regulations. Over time, most South American countries gained associate (but not foil) member status in MERCOSUR.2 Accession to MERCOSUR became part of Argentina’s larger adjustment to externally oriented, free-market economics under President Carlos Menem in the 1990s. Menem’s policies entailed privatization, budget austerity, labor flexibility, low tariffs, loose capital controls and a currency pegged at par with the US dollar. Together, they induced foreign investment and import consumption while incentivizing labor immigration from Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay. Neither MERCOSUR nor the Argentine government strongly encouraged this migration, however. Argentine officials adopted xenophobic rhetoric that echoed amongst labor unions and others frustrated with the economic insecurity that resulted from the country’s socio-economic adjustments (Grimson and Kessler, 2005). After several years of economic growth, Argentina’s mix of open economic policies, high debt loads, currency overvaluation and industrial disintegration made it vulnerable to financial crises. When the one that began in Southeast Asia enveloped Argentina from 1999 to 2002, half of the Argentine population fell into poverty. This experience undermined Argentina's neo liberal experiment and questioned the authority of global powers who had promoted “structural adjustment" in Latin America.
The border policies of Argentine Presidents Nestor Kirchner (2003-7) and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (2007-15) were part of a larger response to that crisis. They increased state intervention in the economy and reduced Argentina's dependence on the US, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and foreign investment from the global north. This agenda was narrated as a recovery of Argentine sovereignty, but it did not entail isolation. Argentina expanded trade with China and deepened South America integration through the continental mobility of persons. Unlike countries where restrictions on migration expressed anti-globalization sentiment, Argentina’s post-2003 opening to immigrants accompanied a reaction against globalization. And unlike President Menem's agenda, the Kirchners’ continental integration policies were conceived as an alternative to neoliberal globalization. Specifically, Argentine legislation in 2004 established migration as a human right and extended constitutional guarantees to all inhabitants in the country. These included working in Argentina without discrimination, accessing healthcare and education fully and unifying immigrant families. Argentina’s 2006 residency legalization program called Patria Grande (Big Homeland) prioritized pre-2004 immigrants from neighboring countries. In 2009, Argentina signed the MERCORSUR residency agreement, which eliminated passports and visas requirements for crossing South American borders. Other proof of citizenship and a clean criminal record sufficed to work in neighboring countries for two years, at which point an application for permanent residency could be submitted (Cerruti, 2018).
In contrast, Mauricio Macri adopted a border tightening policy upon assuming the Argentine presidency in December 2015. One month later, his government issued Executive Decree 228, which declared a “public security state of emergency" and authorized militarization of Argentina’s counter-narcotics and anti-terrorist practices. The decree also proposed furnishing the border with new surveillance technologies and aerial patrols (Grimson and Renoldi, 2019: 89-90)? In January 2017, Macri identified immigrants as a security risk through Executive Decree 70, which eased deportation of immigrants who committed crimes and prohibited entry to those with criminal records. Despite the government’s declared focus on organized crime and serious legal violations, this decree authorized restrictions on immigrants for lesser crimes and transferred enforcement powers from the Argentine judiciary to executive agencies (Garcia, 2017). Such policies were meant to impede border-crossing dangers, but President Macri’s economic policies were pro-globalization in lowering the Kirchner’s trade taxes and capital controls. Reversing the Kirchner’s foreign policy also motivated Macri’s border tightening. He sought to improve relations with the US and European Union (EU) while mitigating Argentina’s growing dependence on China. Macri’s 2016 security policies developed in conversation with US officials (Sain, 2018), and his January 2017 decree on "immigrant criminals” was announced shortly after Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration. Despite this decree, Macri supported MERCOSUR as a trade regime. Doing so was essential for completing an EU-MERCOSUR free-trade agreement and pursuing Argentine membership in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
This review of Argentina’s governing agendas shows why we cannot interpret its border policy as generally pro- or anti-globalization. It also offers a backdrop to the peculiar life of Argentine border walls, where a soft-border president permitted the constiuction of such a wall while a hard-border president ignored calls to build additional ones. Tackling the first part of this puzzle requires inquhy into the complex relations and shifting priorities in north-eastern Argentina.
