Tag Archives: Argentina

Argentine farm tensions build over government beef export ban

By Nicolás Misculin

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -Argentine farm groups will halt trading of livestock in protest against a 30-day government ban on beef exports aimed at bringing down domestic prices, the country’s main producer groups said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

The South American country’s center-left Peronist government unveiled the ’emergency measure’ to tamp down high inflation on Monday, putting it on a potential collision course with the powerful farm sector that drives exports.

The country’s four main rural associations said in a statement they would launch a nine-day halt in livestock trading starting on Thursday in protest and could take further measures.

“The path and the decisions that the executive branch is taking are deeply wrong,” Jorge Chemes, president of the Argentine Rural Confederations (CRA), one of the four farm associations that launched the protest, told a press conference.

“This is the beginning of a raft of measures.”

The standoff underscores the fragile balance the government needs to strike between supporting farm exports that bring in much-needed foreign currency and bringing down damaging runaway inflation that is set to near 50% this year.

The tension also reflects mounting global concerns about rising food prices that have seen other countries move to control exports too, including top wheat producer Russia which has imposed an tax on exports of the grain.

The farm sector, dominated by grains including soy and wheat, has a history of clashes with Peronist governments over tax hikes and export caps, including with former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who is now Vice President.

CHINA EXPORTS

Argentina is the world’s no. 5 beef exporter and has been increasing sales to markets like China, which has bolstered the country’s ranchers but stoked fears about inflation, especially with poverty levels soaring amid a long recession.

The country exported some 897,500 tonnes of beef in 2020 worth around $2.7 billion, official data show. Over half of that went to China. In March shipments to China rose 8.3% year-on-year to $225.8 million, according to statistics from the Institute for the Promotion of Argentine Beef.

President Alberto Fernandez has in recent weeks criticized rising local beef prices and pointed to profit making by exporters who can charge higher prices to overseas buyers.

Omar Perotti, the governor of important farming province Santa Fe and part of the ruling coalition, said that the export ban was not the way forward and that it could harm the sector.

“The solution is to increase production and not close exports,” he wrote on Twitter. “We have the conditions to supply the internal and external market, maintaining the possibility of exporting our products to the world.”

Shares in Brazilian meatpackers Marfrig and Minerva slid on Tuesday after their operations in Argentina were hit by the ban.

Argentina is famed for its cattle ranches and sizzling cuts of steak, which are a central part of the local social fabric, with many gatherings of families and friends held around the “parrilla” barbecue grill at the weekend.

However, rising meat costs have come under fierce scrutiny in recent months. Some consumers – already hit hard by three straight years of recession – say they are no longer able to afford beef. Inflation has sapped growth and spending power.

(Reporting by Nicolas Misculin; Writing by Adam JourdanEditing by Alexandra Hudson)

‘Want the COVID-19 vaccine? Have a U.S. visa?’ Latinos travel north for the shot

By Anthony Esposito, Cassandra Garrison and Marco Aquino

MEXICO CITY/LIMA (Reuters) – “Want the COVID-19 vaccine? Have a U.S. visa? Contact us,” reads a travel agency advertisement, offering deals to Mexicans to fly to the United States to get inoculated.

From Mexico to far-flung Argentina, thousands of Latin Americans are booking flights to the United States to take advantage of one of the world’s most successful vaccination campaigns, as rollouts in their own countries sputter.

Latin America is one of the regions worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic, with the death toll set to pass 1 million this month, and many do not want to wait any longer for their turn to get vaccinated.

Some people are going it alone, while others have tapped travel agencies, which have responded by offering packages that arrange the vaccine appointment, flights, hotel stay and even offer extras such as city and shopping tours.

Gloria Sanchez, 66, and her husband, Angel Menendez 69, traveled in late April to Las Vegas to get Johnson & Johnson’s single dose vaccine.

“We don’t trust the public health services in this country,” said Sanchez, now back in Mexico. “If we hadn’t traveled to the United States where I felt a little more comfortable I wouldn’t have gotten vaccinated here.”

A travel agent in Mexico City organized the trip for them and an associate in Las Vegas handled things on the U.S. side, Sanchez said.

The U.S.-based associate signed them up for a vaccine appointment, then drove them to a Las Vegas convention center where they presented their Mexican passports and received their shots.

“We decided to make it a vacation and we went for a whole week, walked like crazy, ate really expensive but good food, and did some shopping,” said Sanchez.

As demand has boomed, flight prices from Mexico to the United States have risen an average of 30%-40% since mid-March, said Rey Sanchez, who runs travel agency RSC Travel World.

“There are thousands of Mexicans and thousands of Latin Americans who have gone to the United States to get vaccinated,” he said, adding that the top destinations have been Houston, Dallas, Miami and Las Vegas.

Reuters was unable to find official data on how many Latin Americans are traveling to the United States to get vaccinated. Travelers do not generally state vaccination as a reason to travel.

But U.S. cities have caught on to the trend, which is ushering much needed business into cash-strapped hotels, restaurants and other service activities.

“Welcome to New York, your vaccine is waiting for you! We’ll administer the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at iconic sites across our city,” New York City’s government announced on Twitter on May 6.

The U.S. embassy in Peru recently advised residents on Twitter that travelers could visit the United States for medical treatment, including vaccinations.

Latin Americans who had traveled on a U.S. tourist visa that Reuters spoke to said they were able to obtain shots with IDs from their home countries.

As far south as Argentina, travel agencies are selling vaccination tourism trips.

An advertisement in Buenos Aires details the estimated cost of getting vaccinated in Miami: air ticket $2,000, hotel for a week $550, food $350, car rental $500, vaccine $0. For a total of $3,400.

NO HOPE OF A VACCINE SOON

While initially it was mostly wealthy Latin Americans looking to travel, increasingly people with more modest means are making bookings. For many, the cost of lengthy flights makes it a major undertaking.

“I’m getting money together to travel to California in June,” said a worker at a car parts store in Lima, who asked not to be named for fear it could jeopardize his travel plans. “Considering how things are going here, there’s no hope of a vaccine shot soon.”

The slow rollout of vaccinations in most Latin American countries was a common reason cited for traveling to the United States, said Sanchez.

With little to no infrastructure to make vaccines domestically, campaigns in Latin America have been hampered by supply delays and shortages. The United States has administered nearly 262 million vaccine doses, some 2.3 times the number of shots given in all of Latin America, which has roughly twice the population, according to figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Our World in Data.

Distrust in vaccination campaigns in Latin America is also a factor, said Sanchez.

Reports of batches of fake doses being seized by authorities or the required second dose not being available when it was time are some of the reasons Latin Americans gave for their distrust.

Vaccine tourism has fueled a jump in air travel to the United States, with fares for some last-minute flights doubling or even tripling since January, even as airlines increase capacity, according to Rene Armas Maes, commercial vice president at MIDAS Aviation, a London-based consultancy.

LATAM Airlines Group, the region’s largest carrier, said on Thursday it was seeing increased demand from South Americans seeking to travel to the United States to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Aeromexico said passenger traffic between Mexico and the United States increased 35% from March to April.

And American Airlines also said it had seen demand growing rapidly from parts of Latin America in recent months and it had increased capacity, particularly to Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico.

“We’re matching the increased demand in many of these markets, with additional frequencies, new routes or with the use of widebody aircraft, resulting in more capacity,” said American Airlines.

For 29-year-old Giuliana Colameo, the chance to get vaccinated was a relief after she and her boyfriend in Mexico City were both infected by the coronavirus in 2020.

They traveled to New York City where they got vaccinated at a pharmacy last month. She said they were the only two people getting the shots.

“When they give you the vaccine it’s like you almost cry. It’s a relief: it gives you hope,” said Colameo. “I feel very happy I did it and hopefully more people can do it.”

(Reporting by Anthony Esposito and Cassandra Garrison in Mexico City and Marco Aquino in Lima; Additional reporting by Carolina Mandl in Sao Paulo and Anthony Boadle in Brasilia; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

In Dominican Republic, proposal to ease abortion ban polarizes nation

By Ezequiel Abiu Lopez

SANTO DOMINGO (Reuters) – As the abortion rights movement gains pace across Latin America, the issue is heating up in the Dominican Republic – one of the few countries in the region with a total ban on abortion – where activists were camped for an eighth day on Friday outside the president’s palace.

Latin America, where the Catholic Church has held cultural and political sway for centuries, has some of the most stringent abortion laws in the world. Argentina legalized the medical procedure in December and abortion rights activists hope it will give impetus to a regional movement.

In the Dominican Republic, a group of presidential advisors on Tuesday recommended a pending update of the country’s 19th century penal code – stalled since the end of the 1990’s over the issue – revise its stance.

The advisors recommended the code allow terminations when a woman’s life is in danger, the pregnancy is not viable or in cases of rape or incest – similar to the easing of abortion laws conservative Chile approved in 2017.

But the justice commission of the chamber of deputies rejected that on Wednesday, proposing instead that the penal code allow abortion only where the mother’s life is threatened.

Although the proposal is not yet scheduled for debate, it has sparked the ire both of religious groups that want to maintain the total ban and abortion rights activists who say abortion should be allowed in all three circumstances proposed by the presidential advisers.

Without change, abortion rights activists say, women will simply continue resorting instead to dangerous clandestine abortions that account for 13 percent of maternal deaths in the Caribbean country.

“We are the women dying, we are the women in danger,” said Margarita Mercedes, one of the dozens of activists that set up camp seven days ago outside the national palace in downtown Santo Domingo.

Their protest comes ahead of a march some Christian and civil society groups plan on holding in the capital on March 27 to show support for upholding the absolute ban on abortion.

“All three instances (in which the advisors suggested allowing abortion) are murder,” the Archbishop of Santo Domingo, Francisco Ozoria, said on Thursday. “If they approve any one of them, whichever it is, it’s a murder.”

Christian groups already once thwarted an attempt to ease the country’s abortion ban, when they won a case at the Supreme Court challenging a new penal code approved by Congress in 2014 on the basis of errors in legal proceedings.

The update to the penal code was subsequently withdrawn and the debate over abortion died down – until now.

(Reporting by Ezequiel Abiu Lopez in Santo Domingo; Writing by Sarah Marsh in Havana; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Support for abortion jumped in Mexico last year, survey finds

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Support for abortion rose sharply in Mexico in 2020, according to a poll published on Monday, as attitudes towards the issue shift across Latin America.

In Mexico, a majority Roman Catholic nation, elective abortion is allowed only in the capital and the state of Oaxaca, but a growing pro-choice movement has been calling for a loosening of restrictions.

At the end of November, support for abortion stood at 48% in a survey, published by the news organizations El Financiero and Nación321 – a steep rise from the 29% recorded in March.

The poll, based on telephone interviews with 410 participants, asked if respondents agreed that “the law should permit a woman the right to abortion.”

Although Latin America has some of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws, Argentina legalized the procedure last month.

The move was a triumph for the women’s rights movement in a region where the Catholic Church has held cultural and political sway for centuries.

Several nations in Latin American ban abortion outright, including El Salvador, which has sentenced some women to up to 40 years in prison.

Until recently, only Communist Cuba and tiny Uruguay permitted elective abortions.

In most of Mexico, abortion is banned except under certain circumstances, such as rape. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has declined to take a position, saying wider legalization should be a matter for public consultation.

(Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Argentina lower house approves landmark bill to legalize abortion

By Nicolás Misculin and Lucila Sigal

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -Argentina’s lower house of Congress approved a bill to legalize abortion in the early hours of Friday morning, a big step forward for the legislation that could set the tone for a wider shift in conservative Latin America.

The draft law, which would allow the legal termination of pregnancies up to the 14th week, was passed with 131 votes in favor, 117 against and six abstentions. It will now move up to the Senate, where an even tighter vote is expected.

Supporters of the legislation, dressed in distinctive green scarves, cheered and hugged each other in the streets of Buenos Aires after the vote for the bill, which was backed by the government.

Some of the opponents – who had also marched outside Congress through a mammoth debate on Thursday and stayed out all night for the decision – were in tears.

The votes in Argentina, the birthplace of Pope Francis, come amid calls for greater reproductive rights for women across the predominantly Roman Catholic region.

“This is a fundamental step and recognition of a long struggle that women’s movements have been carrying out in our country for years,” Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta, the government’s Women, Gender and Diversity minister, said after the vote.

“We are going to continue working so that the voluntary termination of pregnancy becomes law.”

A similar vote to legalize abortion was narrowly defeated in a Senate vote in 2018 after passing the lower house.

Groups opposing the legislation wore light blue scarves as they marched.

“They don’t want to show what an abortion is,” said Mariana Ledger who was holding a cross and a dummy of a headless and bloodied fetus. “This is it, and they don’t want to show it. They are hiding the truth, we are not foolish people.”

Amnesty International welcomed the lower house vote and called on the Senate not to “turn its back” on women.

The initiative includes a parallel bill – which will face a separate vote – to assist women who want to continue with their pregnancy and face severe economic or social difficulties.

Argentine law currently only allows abortions when there is a serious risk to the mother or in the event of rape. Activists say, even in those cases, many women often do not receive adequate care.

Carlina Ciak, a 46-year-old pediatrician who stayed in the square outside Congress until after midnight, said the bill would help women from the most vulnerable groups who were often forced to seek dangerous illegal abortions.

“Abortion as a medical practice exists, even when illegal it never stopped being performed,” the mother-of-two said.

The most affected women were from groups already suffering from “misery, poverty, criminalization and all kinds of violence.”

“For them, and for our daughters, we will fight until it becomes law,” she said.

(Reporting by Nicolas Misculin; Additional reporting by Reuters TV and Lucila Sigal; Editing by Adam Jourdan, Tom Brown and Andrew Heavens)

Peru, with world’s deadliest outbreak, readies to start vaccine tests

By Marco Aquino

LIMA (Reuters) – Peru will start testing coronavirus vaccines from China’s Sinopharm and U.S. drugmaker Johnson & Johnson in September, researchers said, which should help the country gain faster access to inoculations once the vaccines are approved.

Sinopharm began this week to recruit up to 6,000 volunteers in Peru, which Reuters data indicates has the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in relation to its population size. A team of Chinese scientists is expected to arrive in the Andean nation next week to work with local researchers, said Germán Málaga, a doctor and lead vaccine investigator at Lima’s Cayetano Heredia University.

“This is going to happen around Sept. 3, to begin vaccinations on Sept. 8,” he said. Sinopharm’s clinical trials in Peru are being done with Cayetano Heredia and the state-run Universidad Mayor de San Marcos.

Peru has recorded around 622,000 cases of the coronavirus, the fifth highest case load in the world, and 28,277 deaths. It now has the world’s deadliest fatality rate per capita, with 86.67 deaths per 100,000 people, a Reuters tally shows, just ahead of Belgium.

Sinopharm will also do clinical coronavirus vaccine trials elsewhere in Latin America, including in Argentina.

Other Chinese laboratories that will be conducting trials in the region include Sinovac Biotech, which will work in Brazil and Chile, and Walvax Biotechnology Co Ltd and CanSino Biologics Inc, which will test in Mexico, authorities have said.

Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen unit will start tests with some 4,000 volunteers in Peru around Sept. 24, Prime Minister Walter Martos told reporters on Thursday.

“We are contacting other companies, laboratories, from Britain and other countries that are going to help us immunize at least 70% of the local population,” Martos said.

J&J said earlier this week that it would conduct Phase III trials for its vaccine in Chile, Argentina and Peru.

Peru, a country of nearly 33 million people and the world’s no. 2 copper producer, has been particularly hard-hit by the pandemic, both in terms of infections and economic impact. The economy crumbled over 30% in the second quarter of the year.

The death toll could also be higher than official figures suggest. A national registry shows that between April and August there were 68,192 more deaths compared to the same period in 2019. Excess deaths often give a better indication of the true number of fatalities.

Researcher Málaga and Carlos Castillo, the chief adviser for immunizations and vaccines at Peru’s health ministry, said that carrying out clinical trials would help Peru get faster access to vaccines when they were ready.

“There is an unwritten agreement, in the sense that in the country where a clinical trial is being carried out, it has priority access to vaccine availability,” Castillo said.

(Reporting by Marco Aquino and Reuters TV; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Rosalba O’Brien)

A day without women: strikes in Mexico and Argentina follow huge rallies

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Millions of women in Mexico and Argentina will stay away from offices, school and government offices on Monday, stepping up historic protests against gender violence that saw hundreds of thousands take to the streets over the weekend.

The one-day action dubbed “a day without us” is intended to show what life would be like if women vanished from society. In Mexico, the strike stems from a surge in disappearances of women and femicides, or gender-motivated killings of women.

FILE PHOTO: Women protest against gender violence and femicides at Angel de la Independencia monument in Mexico City, Mexico, February 22, 2020. REUTERS/Gustavo Graf

Femicides in Mexico jumped 137% in the past five years, government statistics show, as gang violence pushed the national murder tally to record heights. Most violent crimes go unsolved.

On Sunday, women took to the streets in unprecedented numbers across Latin America as part of International Women’s Day, demanding abortion rights and action from leaders to stem the violence.

The mostly peaceful protests saw anger boiling over into some outbreaks of violence, such as Molotov cocktails thrown at Mexico’s national palace, after the killing of a 7-year-old and the murder and skinning of a young woman shocked the nation.

The impact of Monday’s strike, in contrast, will stem from the absence of women in businesses, universities and government ministries. Not all women, however, will take part.

“We are tired of being victims, of being abused and mistreated. Enough is enough,” said Alma Delia Díaz, 45, a beautician in the Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec.

Diaz said she supported women making their voice heard, but personally could not miss a day’s work.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said government employees are free to join the walkout. But he has also accused political opponents of seeking to exploit Mexico’s security problems to undermine his administration.

(Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

In Argentina’s north, indigenous children sicken and die from malnutrition

By Miguel Lo Bianco

TARTAGAL, Argentina (Reuters) – In Argentina, once one of the world’s richest countries and long a major supplier of beef, children are dying of hunger.

In Argentina’s far northern province of Salta, in a small indigenous community plagued by extreme poverty, eight children died in January alone from malnutrition and a lack of access to clean drinking water, health authorities say.

Women from the indigenous Wichi community carry their children who are undergoing treatment for malnourishment at a hospital, in Tartagal, in the Salta province, Argentina, February 27, 2020. Picture taken February 27, 2020. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

The issue affects other places, too, and has prompted the national government to announce a plan to tackle hunger. The governor of Salta has declared a public health emergency, vowing to work with the national government to provide clean water in the province.

In the province last week, children from the Wichi community, with a population of just 1,200, played barefoot in the mud, outside homes constructed by hand from wood and cloth.

In Tartagal, the small town nearest to where the Wichi live, hospital beds are filled with Wichi children battling malnutrition and a host of other health issues linked to a lack of clean water, health officials said. Sometimes, the children arrive too late to make a recovery, according to Juan Lopez, manager of the hospital in Tartagal.

Complications related to the issues led to the deaths of the eight Wichi children in January, he said. The community also has one of the country’s highest rates of infant mortality.

A spokesman for Argentina’s ministry of health said, “We are constantly liaising with the province of Salta. We are doing food assistance and health assistance.” He added that there were teams from the federal government working in the province.

Liliana Ciriaco, a 45-year-old Wichi woman, said in an interview that there had been “many sicknesses.”

“There are some pregnant women who die, there are children who die, the elderly, too, and we don’t know what is going on,” she said.

A century ago, Argentina was one of the world’s most affluent countries, but it has weathered a series of economic crises in recent decades. The latest one began in 2018. Inflation hovers above 50% and the poverty rate is at 35%. Argentina’s indigenous communities, historically poor, have been especially hard hit.

A child from the indigenous Wichi community holds onto a feeding tube at a hospital, in Tartagal, in the Salta province, Argentina, February 26, 2020. Picture taken February 26, 2020. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

For the Wichi community, the lack of access to safe water is a critical problem.

“The place where they access their water source has high salinization or even chemicals that have been used for agriculture, which cause many gastrointestinal diseases, diarrhea, malnutrition and, above all, dehydration,” said Diego Tipping, president of the Red Cross in Argentina.

Argentina’s new center-left President Alberto Fernandez campaigned on promises to address hunger, poverty and unemployment. In December, he announced a plan to combat the issue in the most affected areas of the country called “Argentina Against Hunger.”

Alejandro Deane, president of the Siwok Foundation, which is dedicated to improving water access for indigenous communities in northern Argentina, called the situation for the Wichi community “disastrous.”

“There is no good news. What needs to be done? What can be done? Here we need a long-term plan, not a short-term plan,” Deane said.

(Reporting by Miguel Lo Bianco; Additional reporting by Marina Lammertyn and Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Richard Chang)

In farm-rich Argentina, hunger cries ring in leaders’ ears amid crisis

In farm-rich Argentina, hunger cries ring in leaders’ ears amid crisis
By Nicolás Misculin and Miguel Lobianco

CLAYPOLE, Argentina (Reuters) – In the hard-up neighborhood of Claypole on the outskirts of Argentine capital Buenos Aires, Elena Escobar makes her way to the local Caritas Felices soup kitchen to serve food to street children who scrape by from meal to meal.

Escobar, 53, says the volunteer-run kitchen has seen a surge of kids and families seeking help over the last few months, amid a biting recession and fast-rising prices that have pushed millions of people into poverty.

“There are many children in need, many malnourished, with kids that get to dinner time and don’t have any food,” said Escobar. The kitchen receives over 100 children each week, up from around 20-30 when it opened its doors in April.

The rise in hunger and poverty creates a complex backdrop for the leaders of Latin America’s no. 3 economy, who are in knife-edge talks with creditors to avoid default on billions of dollars of debt amid economic and political upheaval.

Ahead of a presidential election on Oct. 27, officials will head to Washington this month to meet with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a major backer that struck a $57 billion funding deal with the country last year.

Those talks are likely to weigh on the current administration of President Mauricio Macri and the next one, likely led by left-leaning Peronist Alberto Fernandez, the front-runner to win the vote.

The Claypole kitchen is far from alone in witnessing rising hardship, with government data showing poverty rates jumped to 35% in the first half of 2019 amid recession and steep inflation, from 27.3% a year earlier.

‘A SCOURGE’

Around 13% of children and adolescents went hungry in 2018, according to data from the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina, and rising food prices have become a regular target of popular anger in street protests around the country.

Political leaders know something must be done, but face a complex juggling act: bolstering growth and spending to ease issues such as hunger, while cutting debt and averting a damaging default that would shut off access to global markets.

“We can’t live in peace with such a scourge,” left-leaning Fernandez said in a speech on Monday in reference to hunger, which he described as Argentina’s “greatest shame.”

Fernandez, who has been buoyed by support for populist running mate Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, blames Macri and austerity measures agreed with the International Monetary Fund for the rise in poverty and hunger.

Macri’s running mate, Miguel Pichetto, meanwhile, said on Monday the way to eradicate hunger was to generate employment and attract “big global companies” to Argentina.

Both sides have said they would honor the country’s debts with creditors, including the IMF, though neither has laid out a clear plan for how to do so while boosting spending at home.

Most investors expect some sort of losses.

Indeed, Moody’s Investors Service anticipates holders of Argentina dollar bonds will need to write off  10% to 20% of their investments, while Fitch Ratings believes the government will write down local and dollar debt.

‘JUST NO WORK’

Hunger and poverty are not new in Argentina, but have risen abruptly over the past two years amid a series of economic shocks that have rattled the grain-exporting nation, famed for its rich arable land and cattle.

The issues have become a lightning rod for anti-government protests and marches, with the hardships of the poor brought into sharp focus as the government has been locked in talks with creditors about repayments on around $100 billion in debts.

Driving the problem is stubborn inflation, a tumbling peso and a slump in domestic production and consumption, which have hurt spending power, incomes and jobs.

“There is just no work,” said 46-year-old Isabel Britez, a volunteer at the Los Piletones dining room in Buenos Aires, who said that was the main message she heard from people eating at the kitchen, which serves around 2,000 meals a day.

Macri, looking to revive his election hopes, has rolled out plans to bolster jobs, including tax cuts for employers. He also announced a freeze on some food prices earlier this year.

Sergio Chouza, an economist at the University of Avellaneda in Buenos Aires, said food prices have rocketed nearly 60% over the past year, with basics such as dairy up as much as 90%.

“That results in a deterioration of diets and pushes many people below the poverty line,” he said.

MORE NOODLES, LESS MEAT

Poverty is a key reason for Macri’s fall from grace. His economic austerity, part of the $57 billion funding deal agreed with the IMF last year, reined in deficits but hit growth and voters’ wallets.

Macri was defeated heavily in a primary election in August. Since then, he has announced lower taxes for the middle class and higher subsidies for the poor along with food aid. The Senate approved an emergency food law last month.

“Perhaps we underestimated the impact of the economic situation on the elections. (The poverty issue) affected the vote for Mauricio,” Eduardo Amadeo, a Macri ally and member of Argentina’s house of deputies, told Reuters.

“The reforms we launched have stabilized the economy and we have tried to reduce the impact from the devaluation in August on people’s wallets,” Amadeo said.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Health and Social Development listed official measures to deal with the crisis, but declined to comment further on poverty rates.

In the meantime, even as soup kitchens flourish, some volunteers say meals are getting more meager amid tight funding conditions and as food donations dry up.

“Previously, people donated some meat and chicken; now we only get noodles and rice,” said Lorena Nievas, who works at the Abrazando Hogares soup kitchen in the southern Patagonian city of Puerto Madryn.

For many residents, however, there is no choice.

“I have people from the street who come in for their lunch and snacks here. It’s all the food they get,” she said.

(Reporting by Nicolas Misculin and Miguel Lobianco; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Bernadette Baum)

Trump-Xi meet, a turning point in global trade war?

FILE PHOTOS: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump (L) holds a rally with supporters in Council Bluffs, Iowa, September 28, 2016 and Chinese President Xi Jinping waits for leaders to arrive at a summit in Shanghai May 21, 2014. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/Aly Song/File Photos

By Philip Blenkinsop

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Will U.S. President Donald Trump’s much-heralded meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Argentina on Saturday lead to an easing of the Sino-U.S. trade conflict?

That has been the main question of financial and commodity markets leading up to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. The answer is likely to steer investors at the start of the coming week.

Signals leading up to the meeting were at best mixed.

“I think we’re very close to doing something with China, but I don’t know that I want to do it,” Trump said as he set out on his journey from the White House.

The state-run China Daily newspaper said any deal was unlikely to be a comprehensive solution to the impasse due to “diverging demands and agendas”.

Economists at UBS expressed hope that a positive message could at least emerge, with a path towards resolution sometime next year, but that recent U.S. actions and statements had tempered their optimism.

ING was downbeat on a breakthrough coming soon, adding that two sides remained far apart on the extent to which China’s trade surplus with the United States could be reduced.

ING Bank forecasts that global trade growth will slow from 2.6 percent this year to 1.3 percent in 2019, the weakest rate since 2009, when the global financial crisis was at its height.

The estimate is based on an intensified U.S.-China trade war in which Washington increases tariffs on $200 billion of products to 25 percent in January from 10 percent now and then targets the $267 billion of Chinese exports not already subject to measures.

Without that, global trade growth could be unchanged at 2.6 percent. However, if Trump also decides to hike import duties on cars, that growth would slump to 0.5 percent next year, ING says.

Trump has threatened for months to impose auto tariffs, notably those made in Europe, although he has pledged to refrain from doing so for the European Union and Japan as long as it makes constructive progress in trade talks with the pair.

However, Trump reignited speculation on Wednesday by saying new auto tariffs were “being studied” and asserting they could prevent jobs cuts such as the layoffs and plant closures announced by General Motors Co.

Economists at Citi believe any tariffs would apply to finished vehicles but not to auto parts and the principal question is not if, but when, they will be unveiled.

As speculation has intensified, top executives from German carmakers Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler, previous targets of Trump’s criticism, are set to visit the White House next week.

OPEC CUTS, U.S. JOBS SPIKE?

Once markets have absorbed the fruits of the Trump-Xi exchange, investors may shift focus to at least two events at the end of the week.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies meet on Dec. 6-7 and are expected to discuss a possible production cut. Oil prices have fallen by more than 20 percent in November, to make it the biggest monthly drop in a decade.

The United States will also report its widely watched monthly jobs report on Friday.

Economists polled by Reuters forecast that the unemployment rate will hold at a 49-year low of 3.7 percent and that year-on-year wage growth will also match the 3.1 percent of October, itself a nine-and-a-half-year high.

The figures, if confirmed, should make it a near-certainty that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates for a fourth time this year at its Dec. 18-19 meeting, even as its chairman Jerome Powell signals a more cautious approach on future rate hikes next year.

“While sentiment may be a bit gloomy after the fallout from G20 meeting the more positive tone to the U.S. macro story could improve spirits as we move through the week,” said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Richard Balmforth)