G20 Summit: “Trumps, Bolsonaros, Macris Only Cause Desolation”

Thousands of demonstrators marched in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday to protest the G20 Summit. However, the protesters were unable to voice their displeasure near the global powers who have gathered for the meeting whose agenda is expected to be dominated by the U.S.-China trade war.

“The G20 is where the world’s most powerful meet to plan the deepening of patriarchal capitalism, and to seek new forms of domination,”  Juliana Diaz, an Argentine from the “People’s Summit,” told Los Tiempos.

According to official data, 25,000 police, coast guard and border patrol officials cordoned off a 12-square-kilometer area, around the riverside Costa Salguero convention center, where the summit is being held.

The G20 meeting comes at a tough time for Argentina. Due to President Mauricio Macri’s adjustment policies, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) is forecast to contract by 2.8 percent in 2018 and by 1.9 percent in 2019.

Despite the projected economic contraction, Argentina’s inflation has already reached 40 percent and will continue to trend as such, which seriously affects 3 out of 10 Argentinians who currently live in poverty.

#TrumpGoHome ¡Eecho pueJ…! #MMLPQTP ☛ @mauriciomacri mantienes seguridad al máximo por la cumbre del G20. ¿Temes qué quede opacada por protestas?

⤵️ pic.twitter.com/VOsbIR1Be1

— Alida Freites (@AlidaFreites_tw) November 30, 2018

“Mauricio Macri you hold maximum security for the G20 summit. Do you fear that it will be overshadowed by protests?”

“In the neighborhood, life was bad, but it worsened a lot in the last three years since Mauricio Macri took office,” Ariel Villegas, an unemployed hairdresser, said, adding that those in power “look down… [because] they do not care about people who have needs.”

In this context of a growing deterioration of living conditions, Argentine workers’ unions are also joining the protest against the G20 Summit and its participants.

“The Trumps, the Bolsonaros, the Macris, all they leave is looting and desolation of the peoples,” said Hugo Godoy, general secretary of the Public Workers Association, who added that “we need to build a different perspective of civilization,” the El Imparcial reported.