Argentina and the United States signed the memorandum launching the Andes-Atlantic Corridor on Thursday, 24 September 2026. The joint infrastructure initiative aims to mobilise up to $7 billion in investment through 2027 to connect Argentina's energy and mining basins to its Atlantic ports.
The signing took place at the Argentine Consulate in New York, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno signed for Argentina and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau for the United States. Economy Minister Luis Caputo, YPF chairman and chief executive Horacio Marín, and Export-Import Bank (EXIM) president John Jovanovic also attended.
What the corridor connects
The route links two productive regions that are poorly connected to the sea: the Vaca Muerta shale formation in Patagonia and the mining provinces of north-western Argentina, where the country's lithium and copper projects are concentrated.
The connection is to be built through railways, pipelines, ports, power grids and digital infrastructure. Priority projects identified include the rehabilitation and expansion of rail lines — among them the already privatised Belgrano Cargas — the Hidrovía (the Paraná river waterway), port works, and a possible line linking Vaca Muerta to Bahía Blanca. The agreement also covers support for the AMBA I power transmission project.
The document does not allocate sums to individual works; it sets the financing framework and the list of priorities.
Most of the money goes to liquefied gas
Of the $7 billion envisaged, roughly $6 billion corresponds to an EXIM proposal to finance Argentina LNG, the liquefied natural gas export project YPF is developing with Italy's ENI and the UAE's XRG.
That figure calls for caution: it is a preliminary, non-binding letter of interest, not a committed disbursement. EXIM finances the participation of US suppliers in overseas projects — a mechanism Quirno summarised by saying the bank "finances American suppliers".
Argentina LNG plans two floating liquefaction units off the coast of Río Negro, with capacity of 12 million tonnes a year and start-up estimated for 2031. Initial investment is around $29 billion, rising to some $51 billion over the life of the project.
Lithium, copper and supply chains
The corridor builds on an earlier critical minerals framework and identifies opportunities in lithium and copper extraction, in local mineral processing, and in diversifying global supply chains that are currently heavily concentrated.
Available instruments include direct loans, credit guarantees and insurance from EXIM and the Development Finance Corporation (DFC). The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) also appears among the institutions involved.
What Argentina commits to
On the Argentine side, the memorandum sets out regulatory-predictability commitments: a stronger legal framework protecting investment, transparent concession rules, and openness to US companies and investors. The government cites as precedent the Régimen de Incentivo para Grandes Inversiones (RIGI, the large-investment incentive regime), which offers long-term tax and foreign-exchange benefits.
"Investing in Argentina strengthens US economic security. The benefits reach both countries," Quirno said after the signing.
The G7's first corridor in the Americas
The Andes-Atlantic Corridor is presented as the first corridor in the Western Hemisphere under the G7's Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, the scheme through which advanced economies seek to offer an alternative source of financing to China's infrastructure projects.
It joins corridors promoted between India, the Middle East and Europe, in Central Asia and the Caucasus, in sub-Saharan Africa and in the Philippines. Washington also frames the initiative as part of a search for energy routes less exposed to disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
With information from Infobae, La Nación and ADNSUR.
