[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 11 (Monday, February 7, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S1043]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


  VISIT TO THE SENATE BY THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it is a privilege for me today 
to call to the attention of the Senate the very good relations the 
United States has with the country of Argentina.
  We are honored to have as our guest the Vice President of Argentina, 
Daniel Scioli, who, in his capacity, has the privilege of the floor 
because, as under the Argentine Constitution, so, too, under our 
Constitution, the Vice President of the country is also the President 
of the Argentine Senate. Since we have parliamentarians of the various 
parliaments of the world who have the privilege of the floor, it is my 
privilege to bring Daniel Scioli, a personal friend, to see the 
greatest deliberative body in the world, the United States Senate.
  Argentina has had quite an economic revival. Under Vice President 
Scioli and President Kirchner, they have had an economic turnaround in 
the course of the last couple of years, particularly evident within the 
last year because we have seen a number of their economic problems 
start to come under control. We have seen a lessening of their 
inflation. We have seen them attempting to deal with their debt that is 
owed to international institutions as well as to other countries. As a 
matter of fact, there are very significant negotiations going on now 
with Argentine bondholders that are held around the world as to whether 
there will be some kind of forgiveness. Of course, you can imagine the 
bondholders are resisting that enormously. But we do know this: For 
Argentina to increase its economic capacity as the leader that 
Argentina is in Latin America, as it is very reflective of an elected 
government and elected democracy, it is clearly in the interest of the 
United States that Argentina does well.
  We see that the Kirchner administration has benefited from the 
results of that economic revival, for President Kirchner and, no doubt, 
Vice President Scioli, in fact, are very high in popularity in the 
polls in Argentina.
  It is interesting that another country in Latin America that has had 
tremendous economic problems--Peru, under President Toledo--likewise, 
is coming up in their economy, but President Toledo does not enjoy the 
high standing in the polls in his country of Peru that the Kirchner 
administration is enjoying in the polls in Argentina. I think, over the 
course of time, we will see President Toledo begin to rise in the 
polls, but he has had a very tough time.
  The Vice President and I just had a discussion about a number of 
topics that are of mutual interest to our country. On his border with 
Brazil and with Paraguay, the Argentine-Paraguay-Brazilian border, 
called the triborder area, there is a city called Ciudad del Este, a 
place about which we are concerned because there is a lot of money 
laundering, there is a lot of fundraising for Muslim charities, there 
are a lot of knockoff goods that are being sold, contraband being sold. 
So those conditions are ripe for terrorists to infiltrate, and it is 
our hope that these countries in the triborder region, the three major 
countries, will continue to cooperate with us.
  I can tell you that Argentina has clearly cooperated with us. In the 
recent trip I took with Senator Dodd and Senator Chafee where we 
visited these areas, we were quite encouraged with the cooperation on 
terrorism getting a foothold in that region. We have seen terrorism 
move from the Middle East. We have seen it in Europe. We have seen it 
move into Africa. Our concern now is that terrorism is moving into 
Latin America.

  Another topic of enormous mutual interest to our two countries is the 
question of the direction that Venezuela will take and the direction 
that President Chavez is taking it.
  In a recent meeting with President Chavez with these other Senators, 
he was very friendly. He said that he was, in fact, clamping down on 
the FARC and the ELN, the guerrillas in Colombia coming across into 
Venezuela. He said, in fact, he had just returned nine FARC members to 
President Uribe of Colombia, and then, lo and behold, we find evidence 
to the contrary shortly thereafter.
  I have spoken with Vice President Scioli, as well as President 
Kirchner of Argentina, to intercede to see if there is any common 
ground with the President of Venezuela because Venezuela and the United 
States have a mutual interest. They sell half of their daily production 
of oil to us. We import 15 percent of our daily consumption of oil from 
Venezuela. Who knows, it could be a leader just like the leader from 
Argentina who is visiting with us today who could be the intermediary 
to help improve the relations if President Chavez is sincere.
  Mr. President, I wish to welcome our distinguished guest from 
Argentina, who has now become a personal friend of mine and my wife 
Grace, to this cradle of our democracy, this great deliberative body. 
Earlier today, he visited with our Vice President, Vice President 
Cheney. We are now glad to have him come and see the body over which 
the Vice President of the United States sits as the President of the 
Senate.
  Welcome, Mr. Vice President.
  I thank the Chair for this opportunity. I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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