Keynote Address of the 37th Annual Conference of the Association of Global South Studies: Relations Between the United States of America and the Argentine Republic

Keynote Address of the 37th Annual Conference of the Association of Global South StudiesRelations Between the United States of America and the Argentine Republic Eduardo Lazzari (bio) Translated by Ryan Alexander The relationship between our two countries has spanned nearly a quarter of a millennium and seen periods of both closeness and distance. Nevertheless, during this time, both nations have maintained a commitment to Pan-Americanism. From their origins, both expanded into massive countries, full of open spaces that have been filled by immigrants from all over the world seeking a new home. It is supremely interesting to compare the distinct moments of our two nations' histories within the context of the modern world. It is also important to note that when we talk about the Argentina of today, we are referring to a geography first occupied by the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata, then the United Provinces of South America, then the Argentine Confederation, and finally the Argentine Republic. Seventeen seventy-six was the year of independence for the United States, achieved by a legal declaration followed by a war against the British Empire. [End Page 351] During this time, in Argentina, the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata was created as the last major reform of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. In the process, the port of Buenos Aires was established as the capital city, having been selected for strategic reasons (primarily to stop the advancement of the Portuguese Empire and to prevent an attack by the British Empire, which eventually occurred in 1806) over more important cities at the time, including Chuquisaca, Salta, and Córdoba. Seventeen eight-nine was the year of the Constitution of the United States, converting the country into the most modern republican democracy in the world. Today, it is also the longest-lasting democracy in the world. The French Revolution began at the same time and, while it culminated in political failure twenty-five years later, it nonetheless would have a formidable ideological influence on the process of dissolution within the Spanish Empire in the 1810s. Eighteen ten was the year of the revolutions of the juntas in all of Spanish America, which imitated the model of the Iberian peninsula during the French invasion at the hands of Napoleon Bonaparte, who had temporarily deposed the monarchy of the Bourbons. For Argentina, this was an opportunity not to be wasted. Indeed, it spurred the only process of independence to achieve immediate sovereignty, and the territory that became independent would grow to become the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world to this day.2 At no point did it return to being under the control of the Spanish Empire, a unique case in Latin America. Eighteen sixteen marked the beginning of the ideological and institutional influence of the United States over Argentina. The declaration of national independence, made on behalf of all South Americans, took as its inspiration the US declaration. "We the People of the United States . . ." was converted into "We the Representatives of the People of the United Provinces . . ." Neither the names of the countries, nor the wording of these introductions, were coincidental. And later that year, the congress of Tucumán met in the northern Argentine city, where it resolved to send its first-ever diplomatic delegate, Martín Thompson, to Washington. Eighteen twenty-two marked a high point in the relations between Argentina and the United States, as US President James Monroe recognized the government of our country and sent the first US ambassador to Buenos Aires. The end of the war for South American independence in 1824 coincided with independent Argentina's first international war, fought in 1825 against the Empire [End Page 352] of Brazil, which resulted in the imposition of Bernardino Rivadavia as the first president of Argentina. Argentina endured a difficult internal process of civil war from 1828 to 1861 in order to establish a political system. The tensions between the Unitarios (who aspired to dissolve the provincial states into one national entity) and the Federales (inspired by the US model) reached varying degrees of intensity, but ultimately the idea of one nation and one state prevailed. This could only...

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