Argentina–United States relations

Argentina was closely linked to the British economy in the late 19th century; and as such there was minimal contact with the United States. When the United States began promoting the Pan American Union, some Argentines were suspicious that it was indeed a device to lure the country into the US economic orbit, but most businessmen responded favorably and bilateral trade grew briskly after the United States and did care of duties on Argentine wool in 1893.

Relations soured when Argentina refused to join the Allies in the First World War. Argentina had large British and German populations and both countries had made large-scale investments in Argentina. However, as a prosperous neutral it greatly expanded trade with the United States during the war and exported meat, grain and wool to the Allies particularly to Britain, providing generous loans and becoming a net creditor to the Allied side, a policy known as "benevolent neutrality".[4]

Argentina's policy during WW2 was marked by two distinct phases. During the early years of the war, Argentine President Roberto M. Ortiz sought to sell food and wool to Britain. He even proposed to President Roosevelt that both countries join the Allies together as non-belligerents in 1940. However his proposal was snubbed at the time, as Roosevelt was in the middle of elections.[4]

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, US foreign-policy worked to unite all of Latin America in a coalition against Germany. Argentina's neutralist stance, however, had hardened following the resignation of President Ortiz due to poor health, and the United States worked to pressure the Argentine government, against the wishes of Britain which supported Argentine neutrality in an effort to maintain vital provisions of beef and wheat to the Allies safe from German U-boat attacks.[4] Most of the beef and wheat consumed in Britain came from Argentina.[5]

Washington policy backfired when the military seized power in a coup in 1943. Relations grew worse, prompting the powerful farm lobby in Washington to promote economic and diplomatic isolation of Argentina and to try unsuccessfully to keep it out of the United Nations, a policy reversed when Argentina became the last Latin American nation to declare war on Germany in March 1945. Argentina hosted a fairly organized pro-Nazi element before the War was controlled by German ambassadors. It did not suppress them as did Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Historians[6] agree that the affinity between Argentina and Germany was greatly exaggerated.[7]

The Argentine government remained neutral until the closing weeks of the war, while quietly tolerating entry of Nazi scientists and some notable war criminals fleeing Europe. Historians have shown there was little gold and probably not many Nazis, but the myths lived on and helped sour relations with the United States.[8][9] When Juan Perón ran for president in 1945 and 1946, the American ambassador Spruille Braden attacked him with a "Blue Book on Argentina", but public opinion rallied behind Perón. Relations remain tense throughout the Perón years, as he tried to remain neutral in the Cold War. Washington blocked funds from international agencies and restricted trade and investment opportunities.[10]

After Perón was ousted in 1955, relations improved dramatically. President Arturo Frondizi became the first Argentine president to visit the United States in 1959. Argentina provided support for the American Alliance for Progress, the American invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965, and the isolation of Cuba after 1960.[11]

By 1976, human rights groups in USA were denouncing the "Dirty War" waged against leftist dissidents by the repressive military regime in Argentina.[12][13] They demanded congressional control over foreign aid funding to regimes violating human rights. The US State Department saw Argentina as a bulwark of anti-Communism in South America and in early April 1976, the US Congress approved a request by the Ford Administration, written and supported by Henry Kissinger, to grant $50,000,000 in security assistance to the junta.[14]

In 1977 and 1978 the United States sold more than $120,000,000 in spare military parts to Argentina, and in 1977 the US Department of Defense granted $700,000 to train 217 Argentine military officers.[15] By the mid-1970s, at a time when détente with the USSR softened the anti-Communism issue and President Jimmy Carter highlighted issues of human rights, United States activists escalated their attacks and in 1978 secured a congressional cutoff of all US arms transfers to Argentina.[16] Argentina then turned largely to Israel for weapons sales.

U.S.-Argentine relations improved dramatically under the Reagan Administration, which asserted that the previous Carter Administration had weakened US diplomatic relationships with Cold War allies in Argentina, and reversed the previous administration's official condemnation of the junta's human rights practices. The re-establishment of diplomatic ties allowed for CIA collaboration with the Argentine intelligence service in arming and training the Nicaraguan Contras against the Sandinista government. The 601 Intelligence Battalion, for example, trained Contras at Lepaterique base, in Honduras.[17] Argentina also provided security advisors, intelligence training and some material support to forces in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to suppress local rebel groups as part of a U.S.-sponsored program called Operation Charly.

Argentine military and intelligence cooperation with the Reagan Administration ended in 1982, when Argentina seized the British territory of the Falkland Islands in an attempt to quell domestic and economic unrest. The move was condemned by the US, who provided intelligence to the British government in its successful effort to regain control over the islands.

US President George W. Bush and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner during the 2005 Summit of the Americas, in Mar del Plata, Argentina

The United States has a positive bilateral relationship with Argentina based on many common strategic interests, including non-proliferation, counternarcotics, counterterrorism, the fight against human trafficking, and issues of regional stability, as well as the strength of commercial ties. Argentina signed a Letter of Agreement with the U.S. Department of State in 2004, opening the way for enhanced cooperation with the U.S. on counternarcotics issues and enabling the U.S. to begin providing financial assistance to the Government of Argentina for its counternarcotics efforts. In recognition of its contributions to international security and peacekeeping, the U.S. Government designated Argentina as a major non-NATO ally in January 1998.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Argentine Ministry of Defense hold an annual Bilateral Working Group Meeting, alternating between Argentina and Washington, D.C. Furthermore, both nations exchange information through alternating annual Joint Staff Talks, military educational exchanges, and operational officer exchange billets. Argentina is a participant in the Three-Plus-One regional mechanism (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and the U.S.), which focuses on coordination of counter-terrorism policies in the tri-border region.[18]

Argentina has endorsed the Proliferation Security Initiative, and has implemented the Container Security Initiative and the Trade Transparency Unit, both of which are programs administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Container Security Initiative provides for the selective scanning of shipping containers to identify weapons of mass destruction components, and the Trade Transparency Unit works jointly with Argentine Customs to identify trade-based money laundering. The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering highlighted Argentine legislation passed during 2013 issuing new regulations strengthening suspicious transaction reporting requirements.[19] Currently, the United States holds a position of neutrality on the issue of the ownership of the Falkland Islands. While the United States acknowledges "de facto" control of the Falklands by the United Kingdoms, it has no position on which sovereignty claim over the islands would be right.[20]

U.S.-Argentine cooperation also includes science and technology initiatives in the fields of space, peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and the environment. In June 2007, the U.S. and Argentina modernized a bilateral civil aviation agreement to update safety and security safeguards and allow a significant increase in flight frequencies between the two countries, which hold excellent potential for increased tourism and business travel. An active media, together with widespread interest in culture and society from the US, make Argentina a receptive environment for the information and cultural exchange work of the U.S. Embassy. The Fulbright scholarship program has more than tripled the annual number of U.S. and Argentine academic grantees since 1994, and the U.S. Embassy is actively working to increase other education exchanges.

The stock of U.S. investment in Argentina reached $13.3 billion in 2011, 14% of all foreign direct investment in Argentina at the time and second only to Spain. U.S. investment in Argentina is concentrated in the energy, manufacturing, information technology, and financial sectors. US-based firms comprised nearly 1/3 of the 100 most respected companies in Argentina published annually by Argentina's largest newspaper, Clarín.[21]

US President Barack Obama and Argentine President Mauricio Macri in March 2016.

The United States is Argentina's fourth-largest export market (mainly energy staples, steel, and wine), and third-largest source of imports (mainly industrial supplies such as chemicals and machinery).[22] Argentina itself is a relatively minor trade partner for the United States, its imports from the U.S. of $9.9 billion making up 0.7% of total U.S. exports and its exports to the U.S. of $4.5 billion only 0.2% of U.S. imports; Argentina however is among the few nations with which the United States routinely maintains significant merchandise trade surpluses,[23] and the $5.4 billion surplus with Argentina in 2011 was the tenth-largest for the U.S. in the world.[24] The U.S. earned a further $4.1 billion surplus in trade in services with Argentina in 2011.[25] A record 690,000 Argentine nationals visited the United States in 2013, making Argentina the 15th largest source of foreign tourism into the U.S.[26]

In 2012 Argentina requested the assistance of the World Trade Organization in hosting consultations to discuss the United States ban on Argentinian lemons.

Global opinion polls taken in 2006, 2007 and 2012 show that Argentine public opinion had become skeptical of U.S. foreign policy at the time. According to the U.S. Global Leadership Report, only 19% of Argentines approved of U.S. foreign policy, the lowest rating for any surveyed country in the Americas.[27][28]

Argentine public opinion of the U.S. and its policies improved during the Obama administration, in 2010 was divided about evenly (42% to 41%) between those who approve or disapprove. As of 2015, Argentine views of the United States' policies are evenly divided with 43% of Argentines having a favorable view and 43% having an unfavorable view.[29]

President Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, First Lady Melania Trump and US Ambassador to Argentina Edward Prado in the US Embassy in Buenos Aires.

The embassy's Consular Section monitors the welfare and whereabouts of more than 20,000 U.S. citizen residents of Argentina and more than 250,000 U.S. tourists each year.

Consular personnel also provide US citizens help regarding passports, voting, Social Security, and other services. With the end of Argentine participation in the Visa Waiver Program in February 2002, Argentine tourists, students, and those who seek to work in the United States must have nonimmigrant visas. The Consular Section processes non-immigrant visa applications for persons who wish to visit the United States for tourism, studies, temporary work, or other purposes, and immigrant visas for persons who qualify to make the United States a permanent home.

Attaches accredited to Argentina from the U.S. Department of Justice (including the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation), the Department of Homeland Security (including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection), the Federal Aviation Administration, and other federal agencies work closely with Argentine counterparts on international law enforcement cooperation, aviation security, and other issues of concern. The U.S. Department of Defense is represented by the U.S. Military Group and the Defense Attache Office. These organizations ensure close military-to-military contacts, and defense and security cooperation with the armed forces of Argentina.