The head of the Southern Command will arrive in Argentina on Wednesday and it will be the first high-level visit under the government of Joe Biden.

In a brief press release, issued this Saturday evening, the United States Embassy in Buenos Aires indicated that the head of Southern Command, Admiral Craig S. Faller, “will visit Argentina this month in the part of a regional trip “.

The text indicated without specifying the dates which he will visit “the cities of Buenos Aires and Ushuaia”. But Bugle learned that Admiral Faller He will arrive on Wednesday 7 and will be received by the Minister of Defense, Agustín Rossi, during a tour that will also take him to Uruguay.

The visit was communicated a day after the phone call made on Friday by Foreign Minister Felipe Solá and the secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who advanced in conversations for a possible visit of Alberto Fernández to Joe Biden, to the White House. The Argentines want to do this first half at the latest.

“Admiral Faller will make humanitarian donations on behalf of the US Department of Defense to support Argentina in its joint efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic,” added the statement from the US Embassy, ​​which since the ambassador has left Donald Trump’s politician, Edward Prado, is headed by his charge d’affaires, MaryKay Carlson.

Donations consist of in mobile hospitals and equipment to fight COVID in “a significant number”, according to diplomatic sources. And they will be intended for the entire health service.

Last February, Rossi received from Carlson the donation of 22 biosafety capsules intended to transfer patients with Covid-19 safely, as part of a humanitarian agreement between the United States Department of State and the Ministry of National Defence.

Faller was already in Buenos Aires in June 2019 when Mauricio Macri reigned. At that time, Trump’s military and diplomacy did not hesitate to voice their doubts about China’s advance in the region. Now the Democratic administration has added Russia to the list of its rivals in South America.

“Russia is actively participating in this region (South America) to counter what it sees as American interference in its neighboring territory,” Faller recently wrote in his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has also provided Russia with another way to expand its campaign to overtake the United States in the field of information,” he also added a reference, without making it explicit , the provision of vaccines in the region. like Sputnik V which Argentina bought.

In the conversation between Blinken and Solá, he knew Bugle, there was talk of a possible negotiation by Argentina for the supply of some of the drugs that the Americans have on the same terms as Mexico is negotiating with Washington.

The government recently complained to the United States Embassy in Buenos Aires about the appearance of a nuclear submarine in the South Atlantic which was collaborating with the British force. Previously, he did not want to do a joint exercise in international waters with an American patrol that sought to deter illegal fishing in the region.

Southern Command is one of America’s Ten Combat Commands. They are under the orbit of the Ministry of Defense. Faller took command in 2018. And now Biden has appointed Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson to take him over.

If confirmed by the United States Senate, Richardson will become the first woman to lead the unit in charge of US military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, and that in recent years it has focused on drug trafficking and organized crime, unlike its anti-Communist activities during the Cold War.