Enron's plundering of Argentina

In 1990, at the height of the neoliberal privatization fever, upon returning from his visit to George Bush, Sr., Argentine President Menem received a letter from US Ambassador Terence Todman implying that eight US companies would walk away from their investment plans unless Argentina stopped favoring domestic corporations. The first company on the list was Enron. As reported in the march 2000 edition of Mother Jones, former Argentine President Carlos Menem, at that time a golf partner and buddy of the Bushes, signed off on a $300 million deal for a US gas pipeline company in Argentina. The deal involved a huge tariff and tax cut. Spearheaded by the opposition, a congressional investigation ensued and a special prosecutor was appointed to the case. Menem, exercising his supreme powers, fired the investigator and that was the end of the matter.

A few years earlier, George W. Bush had lobbied heavily on Enron¹s behalf. Former Raul Alfonsin¹s minister of public works, Rodolfo Terragno, recalls G.W.¹s phone call, mentioning his relationship with his recently-elected dad. Terragno informed him that Enron wanted to get the gas company for 20% of it¹s international commercial value. The international media attacked him for refusing to give in to Enron¹s demands.

Although the Houston-based corporation ended up abandoning the project when gas prices fell, an Enron subsidiary later bought into the pipeline and now owns almost a third of it. Transportadora de Gas del Sur (TGS), partially owned by Enron, delivers more than 60% of the natural gas used in Argentina through the nation's largest pipeline system (4,300 miles). In 1998, 48% of energy used in Argentina came from natural gas, a fact that tends to explain the enourmous pressure that this company exerted on the corrupted Argentine establishment through it¹s allies: two US presidents, the corporate media and a US Ambassador.