Clues to the New US-Argentina Agreement

The US's new trade agreements and the negotiations with Argentina

In our previous article we discussed the new flexibilities that trading powers are putting in place to survive by entering into trade agreements.

In November 2025, Argentina and the United States issued a Joint Statement that launched negotiations for a Framework Agreement on reciprocal trade and investment, which the Argentine government announced as a major achievement because it places our country in a "select group of nations with trade preferences".

These countries include Guatemala and El Salvador, which concluded their agreements on January 30 and 29, 2026, and give us clues as to what the agreement now being negotiated might look like.

In the new agreements with the US, El Salvador and Guatemala commit to adopting a series of measures that simplify entry for US products and grant them preferential treatment. Both countries are signatories to CAFTA-DR, in force since the 2000s, and these new agreements do not replace that Treaty but rather complement and deepen it. This may be an essential difference from what can be expected from the agreement with Argentina, since there is no free trade agreement between the two countries.

Reciprocity in trade agreements does not always mean equal rights and obligations; rather, the exchange of concessions should have an "equivalent" value for each party. However, the agreements concluded so far show a notable asymmetry in favor of the US.

The Central American countries assume most of the obligations, which include regulatory reform, institutional modernization and the alignment of strategic policies. In exchange, they receive improved tariff access to the US market through the elimination of the 10% "reciprocal tariffs".

These agreements, which share a similar structure, are not only a way to facilitate market access for US products but are also used as leverage to drive deep regulatory and policy alignment. This policy alignment translates into "mirror" measures: if the US imposes restrictions on a third country for its "non-market" policies, Guatemala and El Salvador are obliged to regulate imports of those same goods or services into their own territory through measures with an effect equivalent to those of the US.

At the same time, it limits Guatemala's power to negotiate trade agreements with a "non-market" country such as China, since the US may terminate the agreement if any bilateral free trade agreement or preferential economic agreement is concluded with such countries.

This type of alignment, which includes specific benefits of access to the US market, aligns or conditions the counterparts' external trade policy autonomy. We will see whether something similar happens with Argentina and whether equivalence in reciprocity ultimately proves beneficial for both countries.