MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina to raise defense budget two years after seeking NATO global partner status

President Javier Milei instructed Economy Minister Luis Caputo to prioritize those allocations in the bill the executive will send to Congress next week

Argentina's government will increase defense allocations in its 2027 budget, two years after formally requesting global partner status with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a standing held in Latin America only by Colombia.

President Javier Milei instructed Economy Minister Luis Caputo to prioritize those allocations in the bill the executive will send to Congress next week. The amount has not yet been set. Economy Ministry sources cited by Infobae said the increase would be financed from the fiscal surplus and that there would be no cuts elsewhere.

The request was formalized on April 18, 2024, when then Defense Minister Luis Petri delivered a letter of intent to Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana at the alliance's Brussels headquarters. It was not a bid for full membership: Article 10 of the founding treaty reserves membership for European states, leaving global partnership as the only available route for a South American country. The category covers partners outside the North Atlantic region that share interests with the organization.

The closest precedent dates from the late 1990s, under President Carlos Menem, when Argentina obtained major non-NATO ally status. That designation, however, was a bilateral decision by the United States rather than an agreement with the alliance's membership as a whole.

Founded in April 1949 by twelve countries as a collective defense system, NATO now has 32 full members following Sweden's accession. Its central clause holds that an armed attack against one or more members, in Europe or North America, will be considered an attack against them all.

Since 2024, the Argentine government has pursued a modernization of its armed forces that included the purchase of 24 F-16 aircraft from Denmark, P-3 Orion planes from Norway, Stryker vehicles from the United States and Israeli-made rifles. Argentina also joined the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which brings together more than fifty countries inside and outside the alliance, and the organization at the time thanked Argentina for its humanitarian assistance to Kyiv.

More recently, Milei announced the construction of an integrated naval base in Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego province, as part of his plan to strengthen the sovereignty claim over the Falklands. The project has been under consideration for several years and will be carried out with national resources. The partnership request is advancing alongside an escalating dispute with the United Kingdom, a founding member of the alliance, which this week included criminal complaints and administrative proceedings against oil companies operating in waters near the archipelago.

Allied military spending is a declared priority for US President Donald Trump, who said in July that the United States spends far more than any other NATO country to protect its partners without receiving benefits in return.

Argentina also confirmed it will take part next year in Operation Nanook, an Arctic exercise led by the Canadian Armed Forces with the participation of allied countries.