The Government of Javier Milei signed an agreement with the United States to integrate a hemispheric coalition aimed at confronting narco-terrorism and organized crime on the continent.
Argentina's accession was formalized during the first Anti-Cartel Conference of the Americas, a meeting convened and chaired by the United States Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. The meeting was held in the city of Doral, at the headquarters of the United States Southern Command
.
Argentina was represented by Lieutenant General and Defense Minister Carlos Presti, who participated together with authorities from different Caribbean, Central and South American countries.
During the meeting, regional cooperation mechanisms were discussed to confront transnational criminal organizations linked todrug trafficking and other illegal activities.Javier Milei and Carlos Presti.
Within the framework of the conference, a joint declaration was signed that laid the foundations for the formation of a hemispheric coalition
aimed at combating narco-terrorism.
For the Donald Trump administration, drug trafficking and criminal structures linked to cartels constitute a strategic threat to the Western Hemisphere. According to an official statement from the Department of Defense, narco-terrorism represents a challenge shared by the nations of the Americas and criminal organizations have expanded their operations for decades across regional borders
.
U.S. authorities maintain that these networks have fueled circuits of violence and corruption in different countries and that they are also linked to trafficking in synthetic drugs, especially fentanyl.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2024 there were more than 75,000 deaths in that country associated with overdoses of synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl.
Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth. Early in
his term of office, Trump signed an executive order that designated the main drug trafficking cartels as Designated Terrorist Organizations, expanding the legal and operational tools of the U.S.
government to confront these criminal structures.
The conference led by Hegseth is part of this strategy and seeks to strengthen regional coordination against narco-terrorist networks.
“The Department is uniting partners across the Western Hemisphere to detect, dismantle and destroy designated terrorist organizations that fuel violence and corruption,” the Pentagon said in its official statement.
Carlos Presti's presentation
During his speech at the conference, Presti presented Argentina's position regarding regional cooperation in the field of security and defense. The official highlighted the country's geostrategic location at the southern end of the continent and its projection towards the South Atlantic and Antarctic, factors that give it an important role in the regional security architecture
.
The Argentine approach emphasized the importance of strengthening international cooperation in the face of threats that simultaneously affect different countries in the hemisphere.
The participation in the conference convened by Hegseth thus represents a new step in the strategy of the Milei government aimed at strengthening ties with the United States and deepening bilateral cooperation in the field of security and defense in the hemisphere.
