Posted on June 8, 2026
A government tender in Argentina has highlighted the ongoing rivalry between Washington and Beijing in Latin America. According to a Bloomberg report, the administration of President Javier Milei awarded a 25-year contract to upgrade a key trade artery to a venture with a history of ties to China.
Officials from the Milei government announced late Thursday that Jan de Nul NV, a Belgian dredging company, won the bidding to expand and maintain the shipping lane of the Paraná River. Deepening this crucial export-import route for the Southern Cone region—which runs from the estuary at Buenos Aires inland to the world’s largest crop-loading hub in Rosario and beyond—will require approximately $10 billion.
The losing bidder, DEME Group NV—another Belgian dredger favored by an array of U.S. interests—objects to the fact that Jan de Nul’s partner for the job is Servimagnus SA, a local company that has worked for years with China’s state-run CCCC Shanghai Dredging Co.
Milei officials have given participants until late next week to lodge challenges to the decision. DEME’s U.S. partner, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corp., said it is considering its options. A senior vice president for project services at the company expressed disappointment with the announcement, calling it a bad sign toward American investors.
A victory for the Jan de Nul-Servimagnus venture may put Milei himself in a difficult position. The libertarian leader barred state-run entities from participating in the tender, a move widely viewed as an effort by one of current U.S. President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies to exclude China. Yet his subordinates awarded the contract to a joint venture that some Republicans have warned is a front for Beijing.
Although Servimagnus has worked with Shanghai Dredging on several projects in the River Plate estuary and on the Atlantic coast over the past two decades, the venture strongly denies that there will be any Chinese involvement in the new Paraná operations.
What seemed a routine infrastructure tender took on a geopolitical dimension shortly after Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent provided support to Milei during a period of political and market upheaval late last year. The U.S. president, who is reasserting Washington’s influence in Latin America after seeing Beijing greatly expand its footprint, told Milei at the time that Argentina’s ties to China should be limited to trade only.
