Trump in Latin America: U.S. Officials in Argentina, Paraguay; Trump Talks USMCA Progress

Fresh off a trip to the Caribbean, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau landed in Paraguay on October 19 for an eight-day trip to the South American country and neighboring Argentina. In Asunción, Landau, accompanied by Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Juan Pablo Segura, met with Paraguayan Foreign Minister Rubén Ramírez and signed agreements on border security cooperation and sharing U.S. satellite information to help combat drug trafficking. They also penned two migration deals: a Safe Third Country agreement and a measure that sends migrants blocked from entering the United States to Paraguay before being returned to their home country. On October 20, Landau also met with Paraguayan President Santiago Peña who left for a trip to the United States the next day to meet with private- and public-sector leaders and attend a gala. 

The two U.S. officials head next to Argentina, Segura’s birthplace, for a visit expected to focus on security and economic issues, including the Andes-Atlantic Corridor, a bilateral infrastructure and investment initiative launched in September. On October 22, Landau will meet with Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno, who last week met with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington to sign an amendment to the reciprocal trade agreement announced in February. The new language updates the accord to comply with a February U.S. Supreme Court decision against global tariffs and is aimed at helping the deal gain approval in the Argentine legislature.

Two weeks until U.S. midterms, U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum each indicated that a bilateral deal under the umbrella of the USMCA review may be imminent. At a rally in Kansas on October 19, Trump said that “Mexico and us are very close to a great deal,” that could trim Washington’s trade deficit with its southern neighbor. 

Sheinbaum subsequently said a deal was “very close.” The list of 54 issues Washington wanted to address, she said, had shrunk to around a dozen. But The Wall Street Journal reports that U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is stalling negotiation progress as he objects to reducing tariffs on automobiles, steel, and aluminum.

Meanwhile, as U.S. talks with Ottawa continue to stall, a U.S. food manufacturer has filed a lawsuit against Washington’s 50 percent tariffs, applied after August talks broke down on Canadian goods like cheese, wine, cement, and clothing. 

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on October 19 announced the issuance of an arrest warrant for ex-Cuban leader Raúl Castro on murder charges related to a 1996 attack in which Cuba's military shot down two civilian airplanes operated by a Miami-based Cuban exile group. This follows the unsealing of an earlier Justice Department indictment against Castro pertaining to the same incident (see May 20 dispatch). Uthmeier noted that the 95-year-old Castro is unlikely to give himself up, but said the ex-president could be captured if he travels to a country with which the United States has an extradition treaty.

Also on Monday, U.S. and Cuban diplomats held competing events and exchanged barbs at the UN headquarters in New York ahead of a vote next week on a resolution condemning the U.S. embargo on the Caribbean island. The annual vote comes amid the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on the Cuban regime, which continued on October 15 when the State Department sanctioned a Cuban state-owned bank it accused of providing services to a privately owned and already sanctioned Iranian bank. 

An Argentine vote for Salazar. President Javier Milei followed Colombia's Abelardo de la Espriella this week in endorsing Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) in her tight reelection bid to represent a southern Florida district. In an October 19 social media video, Milei called Salazar "a leader who understands Latin America" and can "stand up to the socialist left." Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee criticized the endorsement as "an inappropriate intrusion."

Caught in the Falkland/Malvinas crosshairs. El País reports that U.S. companies are expressing concern to Argentina's Chamber of Deputies over getting hit by a pending bill that sanctions entities operating around the Falkland/Malvinas Islands.

In the fine print. A ProPublica investigation dissects the 18-page U.S.–Venezuela oil agreement signed in late August, highlighting terms largely favorable to the U.S. government and its private partners.