The document is clear about something that often gets diluted in diplomatic language: for the United States, the Western Hemisphere is not just another region in the international system, but a vital strategic space, directly linked to its national security, economic competitiveness, and its structural dispute with China. It is not just about military defense, but about political, economic, technological, and productive control.
In other words, the text confirms what many analysts have been pointing out for some time: we are witnessing an update of the Monroe Doctrine, adapted to the 21st century. There is no longer talk of direct armed interventions or classic military coups, but of strategic alignment, control of critical assets, regulatory discipline, and economic subordination.
The document states that the main threat to the United States is not terrorism or fragmented regional conflicts, but systemic competition with China. A competition that is waged not only with weapons but with supply chains, control of strategic resources, infrastructure, technology, financing, and labor.
From this perspective, Latin America plays a central role: it must function as a secure rear in an increasingly unstable world. A politically aligned continent, predictable and economically functional to U.S. needs. The text is explicit in pointing out the need to prevent "extra-hemispheric powers" from consolidating strategic positions in the region, a direct —though diplomatically phrased— reference to China.
It is not just about limiting its diplomatic influence. It is about restricting its economic presence, its participation in infrastructure, its access to critical minerals, its role in energy, telecommunications, ports, and industrial production. The defense document makes it clear that, for Washington, these are not commercial matters: they are national security issues.
Here a key dimension appears that often goes unnoticed: the fusion of defense and economy. The text does not separate these two planes. On the contrary, it integrates them. According to this approach, U.S. security depends on ensuring reliable, nearby, and politically aligned supply chains. That explains the push for nearshoring and friendshoring: relocating part of the production outside of Asia, closer to U.S. territory, in "friendly" countries.
And it is at this point that Latin America again occupies a historically known role.
Geographical proximity, abundance of natural resources, and —above all— lower labor costs than in the Global North. That is what the region can offer in the new order. The document does not speak of "cheap labor," but the entire architecture it proposes leads exactly to that.
For nearshoring to work, the recipient countries must guarantee three basic conditions: legal predictability for capital, labor flexibility, and political stability. It is no coincidence that these are the central axes of the reforms currently being pushed in various countries in the region.
Argentina is a paradigmatic case.
The government of Javier Milei decided to align itself unqualifiedly with this vision. Its foreign policy, economic agenda, and labor reform fit almost perfectly with the guidelines of the new U.S. defense document. Not due to explicit imposition but because of the convergence of interests.
The labor reform does not aim to improve the quality of employment or strengthen the internal market. It aims to reduce the cost of labor, weaken collective bargaining, limit the right to strike, and discipline the labor movement. It is a reform designed to "calm" investors, not to protect workers.
The Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI) completes this architecture. Fiscal stability for 30 years, tax exemptions, free availability of foreign currency, and legal shielding for large companies, mainly in extractive sectors. All this without demanding industrial development, technological transfer, or sustained generation of formal employment.
The message outward is unequivocal: Argentina offers cheap resources, flexible labor, and a State that renounces regulation. The message inward is also clear: labor rights and economic sovereignty are variables of adjustment.
This logic fits perfectly with what the new U.S. defense document proposes. A stable, aligned continent, with open economies functional to the needs of the central power. This is not about conspiracies, but about power architectures.
The problem is that this strategy is presented as inevitable. As if there were no alternative. As if the only possible place for countries like Argentina was as suppliers of raw materials and cheap labor in someone else's economic war.
But that is not a natural law. It is a political decision.
Accepting this role implies renouncing any project of autonomous development. It means giving up decision-making power over our resources, our labor, and our future. It entails accepting that reforms are designed not based on social needs, but on their compatibility with an external geopolitical order.
The new U.S. defense document is not only a signal outward. It is also an uncomfortable mirror for the region. It clearly shows us the place assigned to us in the coming world.
The question that remains open is not what the United States wants. That is becoming increasingly clear.
The question is what are we willing to accept.
Whether we are going to continue being the backyard, now dressed up as "strategic integration."
Or whether we will dare to dispute a project of our own, with decent work, industry, sovereignty, and real democracy.
That is the debate this document brings back to the table.
And that is the debate Argentine politics can no longer continue avoiding.
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