The vulture funds, Argentina and the U.S. elections

Noticias Argentina

The vulture funds, Argentina and the U.S. elections

Wednesday, September 05, 2012

 

By Nicolas Tereschuk

The information arrived in the American press together with the coverage of the convention that anointed Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate: the owner of one of the vulture funds that is confronting Argentina in the American courts already has given US$3.7 million to Barack Obama’s opposition in the face of the elections this year.

Paul Singer, number one at Elliott Management, a hedge fund that administers US$19.8 billion, donated a million dollars only to Romney’s campaign committee, according to a report hours ago in the New York Post.  Among the Republican candidates benefitting from Singer’s funds are Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, who offered one of the keynote speeches at the convention and the new Republican star, the ultra-conservative vice presidential candidate, Paul Ryan.

The New York Post newspaper revealed that the vulture fund commanded by Singer also turned into the main financier of Congressman Connie Mack of Florida.  Mack is now running for the Senate and already has received more than US$38,000 from Singer, who also supports 23 Republican candidates running for Congress.  The opposition legislator has been introducing a bill to pressure Argentina to pay the totality of the money demanded by Elliott Management, some US$2 billion.

As reported in the New York daily, in the United States it is “highly unusual” for a bill to refer explicitly to a particular country and a dispute it has with private creditors.  The Wall Street Journal revealed that his current bet on Romney wasn’t the first he’s made: in fact he first approached the young Ryan and proposed to support his launching a presidential candidacy.  That support “helped Ryan emerge” finally as Romney’s running mate, the specialized newspaper said.

Also, the media pointed out that his business has given more this year to Republicans than any other company on Wall Street.  Hours ago the Argentine government again attacked Elliott before American courts, and accused the company of undertaking a “campaign of harassment” against the country.  This time before a district court in Dallas, Argentina complained that Elliott is engaging in a “fishing expedition” over different assets to try to harm the country.

Represented by attorney Debra McComas, the country warned that after staying out of the 2005 debt swap, the vulture fund wanted to end up with the Argentine embassy building in Washington, social security funds, detain the launching of a scientific space satellite and other measures that were rejected.  In that context, as strong ties are being seen between these kinds of funds and the Republican Party, Shannon K. O’Neil, an expert at the think tank, Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an article published this week by that center that in Romney’s platform there is no constructive vision on Latin America.

"The Republican Party generally seems to see the region (when it considers it at all) as a threat more than an opportunity,” O’Neil wrote.  The expert warned that in that platform, “about the two biggest economies of the region there is practically nothing” and that the greatest concerns of the Republicans center on the political situation in Cuba and Venezuela.  It remains to be seen if these issues are taken up by President Cristina Kirchner when she travels next month to the United States, with the electoral campaign of that country already underway.