TRADE, THE WoT AND GOLF:

According to Argentine polling organization Poliarquía, 64% of Argentines who voted for President Macri view the U.S. positively, while only 24% of those who voted for his opposition (left-wing Kirchner loyalist Daniel Scioli) do--and Macri only won last year's presidential runoff vote by 2.5 percent. Obama needed to recognize the past without prematurely setting up Macri as a human-rights hero, disrespecting Argentines' justifiable skepticism, or seeming opportunistic. While he was never going to be able to satisfy all parties, Obama handled the situation with grace.

To start, Obama got the demeanor right. For instance, his remarks in the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative town hall were fairly routine, full of classic multiculturalism--Americans need to tune in to the "global community," he said, expressing a desire for better foreign-language education in the U.S.--but to the young Argentines who participated, like Esteban Rafele, the president was a "rock star." Throughout the trip, Obama made endearing cultural references: he tried the Argentine infusion mate; name-dropped famous Argentines like Pope Francis, soccer player Lionel Messi, and writers Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar; now-infamously danced the tango; and even appealed to the "frontier spirit" of American cowboys and Argentine gauchos alike. These seem like small, irrelevant details, the basics of how any president should try to build camaraderie while abroad. Compared to the larger policy shifts at stake, they are.

But style points matter in any political transition, and Argentina's current one in particular. Taos Turner observed in the Wall Street Journal that while former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner gave colorful, hours-long speeches railing against critics, Macri meets often with opposition. As he told Turner, "This is a government that doesn't think it has all the answers." The way Macri carries himself is much more akin to Obama's own manner, and marks something of a departure from the personality-driven, often blustery politics of the now-faltering Latin American new left. By tacitly endorsing this administration with such a fraternal visit, Obama is sending a signal of support to the protesters capsizing the new-left political establishment across South America. Follow Argentina's political lead, and American partnership--with all of its economic benefits--could be headed your way.

If human rights dominated the ceremonial part of the visit, economic partnership was at the heart of the policymaking part. Obama and Macri signed agreements to cooperate on trade and investment with an emphasis on agricultural exchange, as well as crime, security, public works, and facilitating tourism. The agreements affirm Macri's turn toward the center, a massive economic policy shift that has Argentines feeling equal parts nervous and hopeful. In Macri's incredibly active first days as president, Nick Miroff detailed in the Washington Post, he lifted the previous administration's currency controls and export taxes while cutting electrical subsidies, leaving Argentina with a dramatically devalued peso, high food prices, and even higher utility bills. "Macri and his team of economic advisers, many of whom bring Ivy League pedigrees and Wall Street résumés, insist that these shocks are one-time bitter pills to fix a badly distorted economy," Miroff explained, but Argentina is not in the habit of trusting American-style economics. After a bitter end to the failed protectionism of the Kirchners, however, any change is welcome.

Obama's visit underscores two major victories for Macri's administration, and Argentina as a whole. First, American corporations, while suffering in the short-term, are now more confident about long-term success in their business dealings with Argentina in the wake of Macri's reforms. Meanwhile, Macri's proposed settlement with Argentina's American creditors is poised to finally put an end to the 15-year saga that spun the country into default. The result in both cases is a desperately needed influx of foreign currency that will, if all goes according to plan, stem the inflation that plagues the Argentine economy. By improving Argentina's relationship with the U.S. as well as its finances, Macri's administration aims to reestablish the country's place in world markets and declare it "open for business."

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