The soap opera about the purchase of new fighter jets by Argentina will be extended again. President Alberto Fernández has ruled out buying military planes, saying the country has other priorities.
During interview to Financial Times On Wednesday (07), Fernandéz was asked if China could become an arms supplier to the country, to which he replied: “Argentina has to allocate its resources to more important things than the purchase of military aircraft. We are on a very unequal continent, but there are no war problems and we are looking for unity between countries.”
Fernandez's words make it clear that Buenos Aires does not want to commit to buying new fighter jets anytime soon.
In an “ironic” way, the president's statement comes at the same time that the Ministry of Defense was in the process of evaluating the proposals of the three competing aircraft: the Indian HAL Tejas, used F-16 fighters from Denmark and the Chinese-Pakistani JF -17 Thunder/FC-1 Xiaolong, the latter seen as favourite.
A decision on Argentina's new hunting vector was expected later this year, but recent statements by Jorge Taiana, head of Defense, made it clear that this would be for 2023, contrary to the expectations of the military. “NI don't know if by the end of the year, I think by the end of the year we will have received all the offers that were made, and we will analyze them all them,” he said.
A recent meeting between the Argentine ambassador to China and CATIC representatives it also signaled positively for the acquisition of a new aircraft, in this case the JF-17 in its Chinese version, the FC-1, as well as other partnerships in the defense sector.
This is also reinforced by the absence of Pakistani representatives at this and other meetings, indicating that Argentina wants to do business directly with Beijing, including assuming part of the production of the JF-17, something reinforced by the visit of a Chinese delegation to FAdeA facilities.
The Argentine Air Force has been trying to buy new fighters for years, especially after the retirement of the Mirage III and variants in 2015. Since then, the country's main air defense vector is the A-4AR Fightinghawk and only a handful of these jets are available.
The country even got to select the light fighter South Korean KAI FA-50, but the purchase ran into an old and constant problem: the embargo of the United Kingdom, which prohibits the export of defense products of British origin to Argentines, as a result of the Falklands/Malvinas War of 1982.
