U.S. and Paraguay sign air-interception agreement and open nuclear talks during Deputy Secretary Landau’s Asunción visit

The United States and Paraguay signed an agreement on aerial interception of suspected drug flights and announced new security, law-enforcement and nuclear-energy steps during a visit to Asunción by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Landau, according to a U.S. State Department fact sheet dated 21 October.

Landau met President Peña and Foreign Minister Ramírez, and led a trade delegation to Asunción from 19 to 21 October, the State Department said. The fact sheet presents the package as a deepening of what it calls the U.S.-Paraguay strategic partnership.

Airspace and border security

Landau and Ramírez signed an Aerial Intercept Assistance Agreement, which will take effect through a later exchange of diplomatic notes. Once in force, the department said, it will strengthen Paraguay’s capacity to monitor and protect its airspace against suspected narcotrafficking flights.

The department also said it is providing $5.5 million in foreign assistance for counter-terrorist financing, for holding what it called narco-terrorists accountable and for putting a new counterterrorism centre into operation, along with border-security and digital-evidence projects. A counterterrorism adviser is to be posted to Asunción, which the department described as a first for its Counterterrorism bureau in the region.

The two ministers further signed a memorandum of intent on deploying the PISCES border-management and passenger-screening system in Paraguay, aimed at countering terrorist travel.

Crime, finance and nuclear talks

For transnational organised crime, the department announced $6.25 million in bilateral security assistance and the first office of its Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs in Asunción, which will also act as a regional coordination hub for the Southern Cone.

The two countries also announced the start of negotiations on a civil nuclear cooperation agreement under Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act. If concluded and brought into force, the text would provide the legal framework for U.S. companies to export significant civil nuclear equipment and material to Paraguay under what the department called the highest standards of nuclear safety, security and non-proliferation.

Investment announcements

On the commercial side, the fact sheet said the U.S. company Crusoe and Paraguayan developer Araico finalised a partnership to build high-performance computing infrastructure powered by the Itaipú Hydroelectric Dam, with an initial deployment planned for mid-2027. It also said Uranium Energy Corp announced a $12 million investment to develop one of its uranium concessions in Paraguay. The department framed U.S. investment as an alternative to financing from what it termed strategic competitors.

The figures and descriptions above are the State Department’s own; Paraguay’s government had not been quoted in the document. The visit follows other U.S. security agreements in the hemisphere, among them the defence partnership with Guyana covered by Geopolitiki in Hegseth and Guyana’s President Ali sign enhanced defence partnership at the Pentagon.