Argentine President Cancels Humanitarian Award to Jimmy Carter at Trump’s Request-Unproven!
Summary of eRumor:
Argentine President Mauricio Macri canceled a planned presentation of the Order of the Liberator General San Martín humanitarian award to Jimmy Carter in response to pressure from President Donald Trump or the Trump administration.
The Truth:
Members of the Trump administration and Argentine government officials deny that Argentine President Mauricio Macri canceled the presentation of a humanitarian award to Jimmy Carter during a trip to Washington at the request of President Trump.
President Macri’s April 2017 visit to the White House was billed as attempt to rekindle a personal and professional relationship with President Trump that dates back nearly 30 years. Their relationship hit the skids in 2015 when Macri backed Hillary Clinton in the election and called Trump a “show off” and “totally crazy,” Bloomberg Politics reports:
Macri’s relationship with Trump dates back to the 1980s when as a 24-year-old the Argentine president was sent by his construction magnate father to negotiate a real estate agreement with Trump. While the deal never happened, the two men have maintained contact over the years, playing the occasional game of golf. When visiting Argentina, Trump stayed at Macri’s home.
In a television interview in 2015, Macri described Trump as a “show off” and “totally crazy.” Asked if he could imagine a scenario in which the two would meet as presidents of their countries, Macri dismissed Trump’s chances of winning the presidency, saying his views were too extreme.
Ahead of Maci’s planned trip to the White House, CNN en Español reported that Macri would have presented Jimmy Carter with the Order of the Liberator General San Martín humanitarian award, the country’s top honor for foreign dignitaries, but canceled those plans at the request of President Trump. A crudely translated version of that story reads:
(CNN) – At the suggestion of Donald Trump, the government of Argentine President Mauricio Macri would have given up the official award of the award with the Order of the Liberator San Martin, the highest distinction in that country, former President Jimmy Carter, Who ruled the United States from 1976 to 1981.
However, the CNN en Español report casts doubt on those claims in the very next paragraph by indicating that White House officials said they had no knowledge of that happening, and an Argentine official saying that the award presentation had been canceled because Macri’s planned trip was too short:
When asked for a response from the White House, a source consulted by CNN en Español said that they were not aware of that information. Another source, an ex-official from the Argentine government, attributed the postponement of Carter’s official release to possibly a matter of agenda since President Macri had a lightning trip to Washington on April 26 and 27, and there probably would not be enough time.
So, by its own admission, the CNN en Español story appears to quote sources on both sides of the issue that contradict the idea that President Trump forced President Macri to cancel a planned award presentation to Jimmy Carter. However, the report has been cited in countless reports that have circulated widely since.
We can confirm that Jimmy Carter was selected to receive the Order of the Liberator General San Martín humanitarian award in January 2017. An official state press release stated that President Macri had accepted the recommendation of Argentine Ambassador to the Untied States Martin Lousteau’s suggestion that Carter receive the award.
We can also confirm that initial plans for President Macri’s trip to Washington released in early April listed the award presentation, Argentine news site Clarin reported:
Yesterday the minister confirmed to Channel 3 of Rosario the advance by Clarín: that Macri will visit the US Congress where he will interview with different legislators. Recently the House of Representatives passed a resolution reaffirming the importance of the relationship between Argentina and the United States and recognizing Macri’s economic reforms. In Presidency they work for a meeting with businessmen of the US Chamber of Commerce, which has its counterpart here in the American Chamber (AmCham). Also a meeting with think tanks specialized in Latin America, and work on the awarding of a decoration by Macri to former President Jimmy Carter for his work in favor of human rights during the last dictatorship.
However, it’s not clear why the award presentation was never made. Given that both White House and Argentine officials have disputed reports that President Trump pushed President Macri to pull the award presentation form his agenda, and there’s no official record of that happening, we’re calling the claim “unproven.”