’Aug. 14, 2026 (EIRNS)—Acting as an imperial viceroy, Donald Trump’s ambassador to Argentina, Florida drug-store executive Peter Lamelas, has given orders to the country’s businesses to cease ties with China’s technology firm Huawei, charging that continuing relations with the firm represent a national security threat to the United States. Particularly in the telecommunications and energy sectors, Argentine companies rely on Huawei’s superior 5G and fiber optic technology. Lamelas, however, says this is unacceptable. “China requires its companies to give the government access to any data that passes through its technology and artificial intelligence networks,” he charged, according to the Buenos Aires Herald. Moreover, he added, Huawei conducts “espionage” for China’s communist government.
Lamelas didn’t immediately focus his attack on President Javier Milei, given the latter’s close relationship to Trump, but instead initially attacked the Provincial Cooperative for Public and Community Services (CALF), based in the Patagonian province of Neuquen. This is the largest distributor of electricity and internet services in Patagonia, and maintains business contracts with Huawei for the purchase of equipment. CALF will also be installing fiber optic technology and an AI data center at Vaca Muerta, the huge shale oil deposit which the Milei government is counting on to attract huge foreign investment.
The threats the embassy delivered to CALF were unprecedented, beginning with an “informal” message sent through WhatsApp from the embassy’s commercial attache to CALF’s Technology Manager. When that yielded no results, the attache warned that the embassy would revoke the visas of CALF’s personnel if the cooperative continued ties with Huawei. Lamelas then got personally involved, to escalate the conflict further. According to El Argentino Diario CALF’s Second Vice President, Carlos Quintriqueo, announced that CALF has no intention of cutting ties with Huawei, because “it’s a business just like any other.” CALF has commercial dealings with businesses around the world, he said, including from the U.S., Europe, Brazil and Asia.
Given CALF’s defiance, Lamelas used his Aug. 13 appearance at the Energy Summit-2026, sponsored by the American-Argentine Chamber of Congress (AMCHAM), whose members are big U.S. multinationals and large Argentine companies, to implicitly threaten the government, using the Vaca Muerta project as leverage. Knowing how much Milei is relying on this vast oil deposit as a major source of foreign currency, Lamelas warned that a relationship with Huawei, or China, “won’t help investments for Vaca Muerta.” Foreign investors need networks they consider reliable, he said, and the presence of Chinese technology in infrastructure linked to data, AI, communications or energy, could become an obstacle for U.S. capital. La Politica Online pointed out that Huawei is used extensively by Argentine telecommunication and energy firms, among others, so Lamelas’ escalating threats caused considerable unease among the attendees. The U.S. ambassador even offered the embassy’s services as an “adviser” should Argentine need any “help” in resolving these problems at Vaca Muerta. “We’re here to support you,” he said. At the end of his AMCHAM speech, he announced, “we are deciding the future of Vaca Muerta and Argentina today. Please don’t miss this opportunity.”
To date, neither Milei, nor his Foreign Minister, Pablo Quirno, have said a word publicly about what is clearly a matter of defending national sovereignty. Nor has the government responded to the official letters of complaint about U.S. interference sent to them by CALF executives. It is of note that Milei’s government just recently renewed the entirety of its Central Bank’s $19.3 bn foreign currency swap with the People’s Bank of China, and still maintains contracts for infrastructure projects, purchasing railway cars, and electric buses. Argentina also finally committed to the contract by which China will build one of the two hydro dams in Santa Cruz provinces that were to have been built years ago.
