No Complaint
To Argentina the world looked pretty good last week. Great Britain had just signed the biggest meat contract in history,* guaranteeing the purchase of all Argentine meat exports for United Nations benefit until October 1944. Meat prices were up to their highest level in 18 years. With the sale of her most important export product secured, it really looked to Argentina as though being a holdout neutral would bring profit, rather than ruin.
The Argentine press ignored the fact that the U.S. was also heavily involved in the meat deal; they felt secure enough in their relations with Great Britain. After the war the United Nations would need even more food for the starving millions of Europe. It was a rosy outlook.
> Though the volume of agricultural exports had fallen off 73%, their value had jumped by some 10,000,000 pesos ($2,500,000). In 1939 Argentina had exported 12,200,000 tons of agricultural products worth 1,456,000,000 pesos. In 1942: 4,634,000 tons exported brought 1,466,000,000 pesos.
> Exports of consumer goods had increased in wartime by 60,000 tons, which in pesos meant a jump from 45,000,000 before the war to 233,000,000 pesos last year. Argentine home industries had expanded some 75% to supply not only home needs but to open new markets in neighbor countries which followed the United Nations course to war. From 67,000,000 pesos in the first six months of 1939, Argentina's exports to her neighbors skyrocketed to 234,000,000 in the first six months of this year.
> Argentina still trades with 40 countries, their colonies and dominions. They include the U.S., Britain, Bulgaria, Finland, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, France, Greece, Norway, Holland.
Where Is the Flaw? The picture was further brightened by the signing last week of a trade treaty with Chile which took a long step toward the establishment of a customs union between the two countries. Pint-sized but patrician Foreign Minister Joaquin Fernandez himself signed the treaty in the course of a gala visit to Buenos Aires, during which relations strained by Chile's abandonment of neutrality seven months ago were cemented.
If there was a flaw in this picture, it was hard to see it from Buenos Aires. Shops were full of goods rationed in other countries; streets were thronged with cars despite gasoline rationing and a rubber shortage; there were 2,000,000 tons of wheat to burn as fuel and full granaries in prospect for the end of the harvest season.
True, there were a few clouds, but they were no bigger yet than a man's glove.
There were shortages of raw materials, such as rubber and iron; but a thriving smuggling business along Argentina's borders was bringing in rubber. Argentina badly needed heavy machinery; but she is building up light industries and getting along with what heavy stuff she can import. Self-sufficiency seemed almost a reality--and there was always the postwar period when neutrality would cease to be an issue.
Argentina was not counting on having a big seat at the peace table. What she was counting were the big blue chips of trade.
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