US says sanction against Argentina is 'a serious bump in the road'

The US government said on Tuesday that their recent decision to suspend Argentina from the Generalized System of Preferences programme, which waives import duties on thousands of goods from developing countries, “should not come as much of a surprise.”

“They’ve got to come forward and pay the subject awards if they want to work through it,” said Victoria Nuland, a spokesperson for the State Department.

“These are not new issues. They’ve been going on for a long time. So the White House’s decision yesterday to suspend Argentina particularly from GSP should not have come as much of a surprise. It was based on a finding that they were not in compliance with the GSP eligibility criteria set by the Congress,” she added.

Nuland explained that US president Barack Obama “didn’t have a lot of choice in this case.”

“This is a serious bump in the road and we had no choice but to take action,” she insisted.

Despite Monday’s announcement, which was criticized by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Nuland assured that both countries maintain a strong bilateral relationship, have “a lot of interests in common and a huge amount of business together.”