When it comes to foreign policy, Argentina’s Javier Milei government appears to have only one guiding principle: to align itself with the US and Israel as closely as possible, whatever the cost. As I reported on Tuesday, it seems intent on embroiling Argentina in conflicts thousands of miles away, including in Ukraine and the Middle East. Yesterday (Thursday, April 18), we heard further confirmation of that when the country’s Minister of Defense, Luis Petri, announced from Brussels that he had delivered a letter to NATO headquarters expressing Argentina’s interest in becoming a Global Partner of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
“I met with Mircea Geoana, deputy secretary general of NATO,” said Petri. “I presented the letter of intent that expresses Argentina’s request to become a global partner of this organization. We will continue working to recover links that allow us to modernize and train our forces to NATO standards.”
Here’s what NATO’s official website had to say on the development:
“It is a great pleasure to welcome Defence Minister Petri to NATO Headquarters,” said Mr Geoană. “Argentina plays an important role in Latin America, and I welcome today’s request to explore becoming a NATO partner. NATO works with a range of countries around the world to promote peace and stability. Closer political and practical cooperation could benefit us both.”
The two leaders exchanged views on European and Latin American security challenges. The Deputy Secretary General welcomed Argentina’s role in supporting Ukraine with lifesaving humanitarian assistance, including food, medicine, and support for refugees.
That’s right: Argentina, whose economy is in the grip of a brutal stagflationary crisis, largely of the government’s own making (though previous governments certainly played their part), where the ranks of the poor are growing at a rate of one million per month and where public spending and subsidies are being slashed, even for the increasingly in-demand soup kitchens and food banks, is sending food, medicine and other forms of support across the ocean to Ukraine.
NATO’s Global Expansion
NATO, the world’s largest permanent military alliance, currently has eight global partners, only one of which is in Latin America. That country is Colombia, which, ironically, is seeking to join the BRICS (more on that later), the nine-country intergovernmental organisation whose new members were supposed to include Argentina. But Milei cancelled Argentina’s entry. NATO’s other seven global partners are Australia, Iraq (which had little choice in the matter), Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Korea. Afghanistan also was a member, again with little choice in the matter, but it was suspended in 2021 after US troops’ disorderly withdrawal from the country.
The NATO press release notes that any decision on a formal partnership would require consensus by all 32 Allies, including the UK, Argentina’s historic rival which could, if it wanted, throw a spanner in the works, though that is unlikely. Far more of an obstacle is the fact that that before joining Milei have to seek the approval of Argentina’s Congress, and that is far from a given considering how little support his party enjoys in the two legislative chambers.
According to NATO’s official website, NATO’s engagement with global partners is taking on growing importance “in a complex security environment, where many of the challenges the Alliance faces are global and no longer bound by geography”:
NATO’s involvement in areas outside of its immediate region – including Afghanistan and Libya – has increased the need and opportunities for enhanced global interaction. Clearly, the emergence of global threats requires the cooperation of a wider range of countries to successfully tackle challenges such as terrorism, proliferation, piracy or cyber attacks. Dialogue with these countries can also help NATO avert crises and, when needed, manage an operation throughout all phases.
The NATO Agenda 2030 (defined in June 2021) sets out a commitment to strengthen NATO’s relationships with like-minded partners and forging new commitments in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In November 2021, the Atlantic Council (NATO’s political arm) raised the possibility of Mexican accession. As the Latin American Strategic Center for Geopolitics CELAG noted in its 2022 paper, “What Is NATO Doing in Latin America?”, one key attraction of Latin America to NATO is manpower:
Brazil has 334,500 active military personnel, Colombia 200,000 and Argentina 51,309 (data as of 2018). NATO has 3.5 million active military and civilian personnel. Brazil and Colombia alone would contribute more assets than the European members annexed to NATO in the 1990s (North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Croatia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary). Argentina has assets similar to those of Bulgaria (24,800) and the Czech Republic (25,000) combined.
Another reason why NATO, like the US, is interested in Latin America is China, and to a lesser extent, Russia’s growing influence in the region. The Asian superpower is already South America’s largest trading partner. In recent years, the US has initiated an aggressive plan to reengage with its direct neighbourhood after decades of relative disinterest. China’s rise in Latin America coincided almost perfectly with the US-led Global War on Terror, as I noted in my August 2021 article, The US Is Losing Power and Influence in Its Own “Backyard”:
As Washington shifted its attention and resources away from its immediate neighborhood to the Middle East, where it frittered away trillions of dollars spreading mayhem and death and breeding new terrorists, China began snapping up Latin American resources. Governments across the region, from Brazil to Venezuela, to Ecuador and Argentina, took a leftward turn and began working together across various fora. The commodity supercycle was born.
China’s trade with the region grew 26-fold between 2000 and 2020, from $12 billion to $315 billion, and is expected to more than double by 2035, to more than $700 billion. In the last 20 years China has moved from an almost negligible position as a source of imports and destination of exports within the region to become its second trade partner, at the expense not just of the US but also Europe and certain Latin American countries such as Brazil whose share of inter-regional trade has fallen. According to the World Economic Forum, “China will approach—and could even surpass—the US as LAC’s top trading partner. In 2000, Chinese participation accounted for less than 2% of LAC’s total trade. In 2035, it could reach 25%.”
Spearheading Washington’s plan to regain dominance of South America is General Laura Richardson, the commander of US Southern Command whom the Argentine newspaper La Nación described in a recent headline as “the US general who works day and night to stop China’s advance in Latin America.” Richardson has visited the country twice in the past month alone.
Richardson’s mission is two fold: first, to counter Chinese and Russian influence in the region. Latin America is brimming with invaluable resources, including rare earth elements, lithium, gold, oil, natural gas, light sweet crude, copper, abundant food crops, and fresh water. And the US government and military, and the corporations whose interests they serve, have their eyes on all of them…
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Nick Corbishley 