WASHINGTON, July 25, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's deprecating comments on the U.S. debt limit stalemate delivered at the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, American Task Force Argentina (ATFA) co-chair Dr. Robert J. Shapiro made the following statement:

"President (and candidate) Kirchner would seize upon the stalled U.S. debt-limit negotiations to thump her chest about the virtues of the Argentine 'economic model.' But if that model works as well as she claims – if Argentina in fact has turned the corner on its historic 2001 sovereign debt default –why won't the Argentine government abide by arbitral demands to satisfy $3.5 billion in outstanding debt to U.S. lenders? And why has the Economist Magazine called Argentina the world's most over-heated economy?  She can't have it every way.

"The Kirchner 'Model' is characterized by a sophisticated, systematic evasion of more than $15 billion in loans owed to creditors in the United States and around the world.   Argentina has persisted in defying dozens of judgments issued by U.S. courts as well as the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.  To evade these judgments – which the Argentine government specifically pledged to respect when it originally borrowed the funds – the Kirchner regime has sheltered 86 percent of the country's currency reserves (over $40 billion) at the Bank for International Settlements.  Elaborate evasion, broken promises, protectionist trade policies, irresponsible monetary expansion, and manipulation of GDP and inflation data are the hallmarks of the Kirchner 'Model.' This approach is unsustainable and unbefitting a G-20 partner and one-time leader of Latin America.

"Argentina remains cut off from the international capital markets open to every other country, and will be unable to return, until it satisfies its legal obligations to U.S. and worldwide lenders. Rather than hectoring the United States, Argentina should listen to the world and change course."

Made up of an alliance of diverse organizations, ATFA's leadership includes Executive Director Robert Raben, a former Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, and is co-chaired by The Honorable Robert J. Shapiro, former Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs in the Clinton Administration, and Ambassador Nancy Soderberg, Ambassador at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York from 1997 to 2001.

For additional information on ATFA's activities, please visit www.atfa.org, or contact media@atfa.org, or +1-888-662-2382.

SOURCE American Task Force Argentina

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