U.S. to establish $13.35M regional security office in Argentina

Argentina says funding multiplies U.S. defense cooperation tenfold

The United States plans to establish a $13.35 million regional office of the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) in Argentina, Security Minister Alejandra Monteoliva announced Monday. The office, to be based in Argentina, will operate as a regional unit of the bureau and is intended to strengthen operational responses to transnational criminal organizations and drug trafficking networks whose logistics increasingly extend across borders, according to the Argentine Security Ministry.

“Argentina is a reliable country, and our allies know it,” Monteoliva said in an October 5, 2026, post on X. “With the United States, we are strategic partners on security.”

Monteoliva said the new regional INL unit will be based in Argentina and will receive $7.5 million for equipment, training and security projects. The ministry said $7.5 million will be used exclusively for cooperative projects in Argentina, including equipment purchases, training for local security forces and specific security initiatives. The remaining $5.85 million will fund joint initiatives elsewhere in the region, with Argentina participating.

“Faced with transnational criminal organizations that do not recognize borders, we are working with our partners to protect families and fight organized crime throughout the region,” Monteoliva said.

The ministry described the office as “a new step in the strategic work between Argentina and the United States for regional security, in response to criminal organizations operating with increasingly greater capacity and transnational reach.”

Argentine authorities said the new funding will increase current U.S. defense cooperation investment in the country tenfold. They said the increased resources respond to changes in the operations of criminal organizations — including drug cartels and other groups whose logistics now extend across national borders — and that the State Department presence in the Southern Cone is intended to improve the exchange of intelligence aimed at disrupting drug trafficking routes.

Local news outlets La Nación and Perfil reported that the initiative builds on previous security cooperation between the two countries. Those efforts include the creation of the Regional Center for Information and Analysis on Organized Crime, known by its Spanish acronym CRIACO, with State Department support, as well as joint operations between Argentine counternarcotics units and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Those operations resulted in the seizure of more than 2,778 pounds of cocaine over the past year, La Nación and Perfil reported.

Argentina and the United States also recently conducted joint military exercises in Ushuaia, Argentina’s southernmost city, coordinated with the U.S. Southern Command.