The Argentine government formally submitted a request for entry into the United States Visa Waiver Program, within the framework of the visit to Buenos Aires of the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, both governments reported.

Among other issues, they discussed Argentina's formal request to be included in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), which allows citizens of beneficiary countries to enter the United States without a visa and stay for up to 90 days for business or tourism.

This would position "Argentina in a select group of countries with this privilege," the Presidency wrote in a statement.

Kristi Noem: Not before a year

There is no date to define whether Argentina will become the second country of Latin America after Chile to benefit from this program.

"It is very difficult for it to happen in less than a year," Noem later told reporters at the Campo de Mayo military compound in Buenos Aires, where she went to ride with her Argentine counterpart, Patricia Bullrich.

Around 1.2 million Argentines travel to the United States annually, Alberto Fohrig, Director of International Cooperation for the Argentine Ministry of Security, told Radio Mitre.

Argentina had already been part of the VWP until 2002, when the privilege was withdrawn following the economic and social crisis that triggered a wave of migration the previous year.

The Argentine president considers it a "natural and "strategic" to Trump, who has sympathy for Milei and has even called him a "great leader."