Responding to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s demand to “get China out of Argentina,” Javier Milei’s government has suspended construction of the China Argentina Radio Telescope (CART), a 40-meter-diameter, single dish radio telescope that has been underway for ten years, and, when complete sometime in 2026 will be the largest radio telescope in Latin America. Its cancellation has enraged the country’s scientific and astronomical community, which has already suffered the devastating effects of Milei’s slashing of the nation’s budget for science and technology institutions and education.
The High Council of San Juan National University (UNSJ) in the northwestern province of San Juan where CART is located, issued a formal statement demanding CART’s reinstatement, expressing alarm,"at the “evident interference of foreign interests which conditions the fate of Argentina’s scientific and technological development which particularly affects international scientific cooperation with China.”
