After years of conversations, comings and goings and some resistance in Kirchnerism, the emblematic United States Army Corps of Engineers will land in Paraná-Paraguay waterway through a agreement with the government of Javier Milei through the General Administration of Ports (AGP).
Establishes the possibility of exchanging information, training and cooperation in the management of one of the most important waterways in the world and through which the majority of Argentina and Paraguay’s grain trade exits to the world.
The waterway also has other aspects that affect international security as trafficking also takes place through its rivers. crimes and drugs. And it’s a center of enormous commercial interests that the United States, China and Europe try to compete with through their companies.
The Army Corps of Engineers provides public engineering services in more than one hundred countries on civil and military projects and seeks to strengthen national security, boost the economy, and reduce disaster risks. In the United States it operates, for example, in the orbit of Mississippi.
What has been signed is now a memorandum of understanding for technical cooperation between the Comptroller of the AGP, Gastón Benvenuto, and the representative of the United States Corps of Engineers for Latin America, Adriel McConnell, in a meeting on the same waterway in which the Secretary of the State and State Companies was present Chief of Staff of the Nation, Mauricio Gonzalez Botto and the Ambassador of the United States of America, Marc Stanley.
“This relationship is a perfect example of how our countries can connect technical experts to improve the management of our critical infrastructure,” Stanley said. And in a statement from the United States Embassy it is made clear that both Argentina and the United States “recognize the shared objectives of ensuring efficient and transparent port operations of waterways in the midst of evolving environmental dynamics, including the realities of climate change and the need to improve security measures to combat illicit activities in waterway operations.”
And it underlines that “the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the indispensable role of maritime transport, underlining the importance of stable and reliable port operators”.
Moreover, the agreement reached between the military engineers of the United States and the Argentine government recalls the one reached by the former with Paraguay for a so-called General Plan of Cooperation in the Waterway. That was in 2019 and there was an attempt to reactivate it in 2023. This sparked Argentine protest several times because the Paraguayans agreed to the presence of US military engineers without consulting this country.
In the case of the Paraguayans it is an agreement that must pass through Congress, in the case of Argentina not, because It was inter-ministerial.
The AGP said the agreement will allow for a deeper exchange of information between the two administrations, with a focus on efficiency and the creation of new training on aspects of port and waterway management, maintenance of navigation and environmental balance, as well as infrastructure development. , among other areas.
According to what has been observed in the short term, the Milei government has left AGP out of the package of companies to be privatized. This was nationalized by the government of Alberto Fernandez, seeking to maintain control over toll collection, an issue that generated conflicts with Paraguay over the establishment of tolls in the Argentine-controlled area.
In this case, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is organizing a meeting between the Paraguayan government and entrepreneurs. Diana Mondino’s instruction is that the toll remain on the Idrovia, but that her amount be negotiated.
Source: Clarin
