The Floridian was the first to report significant China risk in the Argentine tender for the 25 year concession on the Parana-Paraguay Waterway (Hidrovia) tender. Following our reports, mainstream media outlets such as Reuters and Bloomberg have extensively reported on grave concerns by the US government on the penetration of China into this tender through its links with Servimagnus, the partner of Jan De Nul in this bid.
Various reports also point to an alleged complicity between Argentina's National Agency for Ports and Navigation (ANPYN), represented by its Executive Director Inaki Arreseygor, and the Jan De Nul consortium in delivering a custom-made tender aimed to guarantee that Jan De Nul-Servigmagnus be declared the winner of this bogus tender.
And this is exactly what happed.
U.S. intelligence outlined the alleged ties between the ANPYN and the Chinese embassy in Buenos Aires.
The Argentine Ministry of Economy released a statement pre-awarding the VNT concession to the China linked Jan De Nul-Servimagnus group.
However, shockingly, the same Ministry claims that this tender will result in a 15% decrease of the tariff users of the Hidrovia, including American users, will pay. It thereby implicitly admits that Jan De Nul who held the previous concession for almost 30 years, had overcharged the river operators by more than 17%. Thus, American users of this critical river have borne a significant part of this rip-off.
But it does not stop here. In January 2025, the Argentina Government mysteriously cancelled the first Hidrovia tender in which DEME offered a very competitive price.
Why? Maybe the offer was too competitive and therefore the tender had to be cancelled?
11 months later the new tender was issued and included a feature never seen before: a minimum floor price under which no bids were allowed that was significantly higher than the price at which DEME, one of the world leaders in this field, was able to perform the job.
The Milei government hence seems to be protecting Jan De Nul’s operating margins to the detriment of its own people.
Earlier this week, the US backed DEME consortium which included great American investors and operators such as KKR, Clear Street and Great Lakes Dredge and Dock, announced a private initiative, allowed under Argentine procurement laws, to the Ministry of Economy in which it offered at 17,4% lower tariff than the minimum tariff charged by Jan De Nul. This represents a saving of USD 2,500,000,000 to Argentine and American users of the Hidrovia. If the government refuses this initiative, it will have to declare that saving usd 2,5 billion is not in the public interest.
Milei's not-so-friendly Hidrovia surcharge against American companies
Having accepted a USD 20 billion credit facility from the US government, the Milei administration is rewarding American river users with a 21% surcharge over the market price for trading on this critical waterway.
The recently announced Reciprocal Trade and Investment Agreement which aims to reduce trade barriers and focusses firstly on developing trade in critical minerals and agriculture products clearly means for the Argentine government that it can overcharge Americans for such trades. As a prominent Argentine economist, how will President Milei justify this.
It all seems a pre-planned set-up whereby ANPYN, the tender authority run by Mr. Inaki Arreseygor, pre-emptively tried to cover itself with an alleged UN report which raises more questions than it provides answers.
It seems that The Floridian is not alone in pointing out irregularities and abnormalities in this critical tender. Last week, Argentina’s anti-corruption prosecution office (PIA) delivered a damaging report pointing to many irregularities and potential legal violations within the tender to the Federal Criminal and Correctional Court.
The report explicitly mentions possible bias and “directional drafting” in favour of the sitting contractor (currently Jan De Nul).
Defending the tender process Mr. Arreseygor repeatedly refers the alleged tender “supervision” of UNCTAD.
Let’s dig a bit deeper into this UNCTAD report.
The Hidrovia tender concerns a 25 year dredging and signalization concession on the most important waterway in the Southern Hemisphere. It represents an investment by private companies of US 10,000,000 over the term of the concession. This is the biggest contract in its kind in the world. The first tender in January 2025 was abruptly cancelled.
The cancellation allowed ANPYN to access all confidential financial and technical data of the sole bidder Deme and use this data to tailor make a tender that would assure Jan De Nul scores more points than its competitor in the evaluation process. Many international players, such as the Dutch giants Boskalis and Van Oord, refused to play the game and did not even bid, publicly declaring that it feels as a rigged bid the outcome of which it already long known.
In order to give credibility to the new tender, ANPYN turned to UNCTAD and proudly announced on May 21, 2025 the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with UNCTAD by which “UNCTAD will carry out an international audit on the preparation and review of the specifications for the future tender of the Waterway, seeking to ensure transparency and objectivity in all stages of the process” (ANPYN and UNCTAD of the UN signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the future tender of the Trunk Waterway | Argentina.gob.ar)
It further states “an audit will be implemented to defend competition, reinforcing the framework of fair competition”. It terminates by stating that “The audit and technical advisory work framed in the MOU, will include the stage of preparation of the new specifications for the tender of the Waterway, focusing on the following specific areas of collaboration: preparation of the specifications; monitoring of the bidding process; and defense of competition”.
Considering the importance of this critical waterway tender not only for Argentina but for the entire Western Hemisphere, one would think that a top tier independent engineering firm would be mandated to fulfil such important mission.
Not so in Argentina: the UNCTAD consulting contract was given to a Spanish micro consulting company, a one man show: Port Insight Consulting. A search through Moody’s Analytics per May 22, 2026 learns that this company has not disclosed annual accounts for the year 2024 and 2025, that it made less than USD 55,000 in total revenues in 2023 and that according to the same search engine no Ultimate Beneficial Owner has been published, which would be a clear violation of existing Spanish laws as well as UNCTAD own rules on transparency.
According to publicly available information, since 2018 Port Insight Consulting, was only awarded 4 small public contracts outside the Port of Barcelona for a total cumulative value of less than USD 52,000, mainly related to small technical advisory and analytical services.
Furthermore, no public records seem to connect Port Insight Consulting, or its sole employee Mr. Rafael Escutia with UNCTAD. None of them seem to be mentioned in any official documentation associated with this tender.
Several sector sources confirm it is unheard that such a complex tender would be advised upon by such an obscure consultancy firm that no-one in the sector has heard about. The Brazilian DTA, which was disqualified in the first round, raises serious concerns with the report which seems not to include any reference to its authors, nor their credentials.
Sector specialists told The Floridian that the report itself, though embellished with graphs and tables to give it an appearance of seriousness, is extremely basic and contains factual mistakes. It is barely more than a copy-paste of most of the conditions of the failed 2025 tender and serves only to justify these conditions in the current tender.
This report seems not have been written by an expert consultant and therefore does not meet UNCTAD standards. Chris Gunsten, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock, the largest US dredging company, stated to The Floridian that ‘though the UNCTAD report recommended to consider the bidder’s experience by total and monthly volumes, ANPyN included a ranking based on the length of the waterway dredged that was not suggested in the UNCTAD report and could be seen as biased towards the incumbent as only he would meet this criteria”.
No other river in the world is dredged continuously over this length. It seems that ANPYN has been selective in following the recommendations of the report in order to unfairly benefit Jan De Nul-Servimagnus.
The MOU specifically mentions that UNCTAD will “monitor the bidding process and defend the competition”. ANPYN never communicated on the monitoring of the bidding process by UNCTAD. When asked, Mr. Inaki Arreseygor refused to share with us the monitoring report referred to in the MOU, which so far he also refused to publish.
The Floridian reached out to Mr Inaki with the following questions:
- What is your reaction to the concerns raised by DTA on the UNCTAD report?
- Can you please send us a copy of the MOU signed between ANPyN and UNCTAD to which is referred in the May 21, 2025 press release
- Who selected the consultants? What is their background and what are their credentials? Who paid the consultants and how much were they paid for this mission?
- What are the names of the 4 authors of the Dec 2, 2025 UNCTAD report?
- What is the role of Port Insight Consulting SA, the one-man Spanish micro consulting company? Who selected and appointed this firm? By which process? Who paid for its mission and how much was paid?
- Where the UNCTAD procurement rules followed to appoint the consultants?
- Did you conduct a conflict of interest check? Did the consultant ever before worked for ANPyN or Jan De Nul/Servimagnus? Who are the UBOs of the consultant?
- The MOU, per your press release, states that UNCTAD will monitor the bidding process. Can you please share with us the monitoring report as drafted by UNCTAD? Can you confirm that UNCTAD actively monitored the bidding process itself, including the evaluation of the envelopes?
- On May 23, 2026 in an interview you stated that the current tariff will reduce costs by 15%. Isn’t that admitting that for the last 30 years, Jan De Nul has overcharged the Argentine economy as well as American operators on the Hidrovia by 15%? What is your position on this?
- Why did you set a floor price that was higher than the best price submitted in the 2025 cancelled tender
- Will you request from the winner of the tender to reset his price to match the discount offered by the Deme consortium in its private initiative or do you prefer to fill the pockets of a private operator with an additional USD 2,5 billion paid by American and Argentinian river users?
But it does not end here. The MOU states that it aims “to defend competition, reinforcing the framework of fair competition”. But wait a bit, the tender does not allow competition on price as it set a floor price under which the bidders cannot bid?
This floor price is even higher than the price that Deme offered in its January 2025 bid. Shouldn’t the aim of a tender be to obtain the best tariffs for the Argentine economy and the users of the river?
What reasonable justification can be given for issuing a tender at a higher price than market practice?
Is it to protect vested interests?
Shockingly, Inaki Arreseyor announced on May 23, 2026 ( Iñaki Arreseygor, the official in charge of privatizing the Waterway: "We are going to lower export logistics costs by 15%" - Infobae) that the floor price offered by Jan De Nul will reduce the logistics cost by 15%, thereby implying that past dredging works executed by the sitting contractor, Jan De Nul, overcharged the Argentine State, as well as American users of the Hidrovia, by 15%.
Is it time for US authorities to conduct an audit into Jan De Nul’s Hidrovia financials?
If this is proven to be correct, it will have directly impacted US operators and consumers. It is hard to believe that President Milei, economist by training, would support granting a concession to an operator who, by admission of Argentina’s own Port Authority, seems to have used the Hidrovia as its cash cow to fill its pocket by overcharging by as much as 15%. Mr Inaki refused to answer our question on this topic.
Could the alleged artificial awarding of this tender to Jan De Nul-Servimagnus be a slap in the face to the US, who has generously support the Milei government?
Milei: Friend or Foe to America?
President Milei appears to have signaled his preference for a consortium with significant China risks, that seems to have overcharged his country for over a quarter of a century, over a consortium backed by great American investors and operators and happily overpay for the services by 2,5 billion dollars.
American lawmaker, Rep. Cory Mills (R) is suggesting that the U.S. reconsider or reevaluate who its trading partners and friends are, adding that perhaps the Trump administration begin their "friendships in Latin America audit with Argentina.
Remember, President Trump extended a $20 billion line of credit bailout to Milei's government.
“Communist China continues to pose a threat to U.S. national security through its Belt & Road initiative. Why is Argentina and President Milei jumping into bed with China in regard to the dredging of the Parana Waterway," questioned Rep. Mills before questioning Milei's alleged "friendship with President Trump."
"There is an American option, but it appears as if the country’s longstanding alliance with Chinese state-run companies is more important to President Milei than his friendship with President Trump, Rep. Mills added. "It may be time for the U.S. to start reevaluating so-called political ‘friendships’ in Latin America starting with Argentina."
Mills' concerns echo those of Rep. Brian Mast (R), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HASC) in the U.S. House of Representatives.
"The United States just assisted them with $20 billion, and to not allow U.S. companies go to work in their ports and their waterways, and dredging, or anything else is unacceptable for us,” said Rep. Brian Mast in an interview with The Floridian.
In doing so, his government is hiding behind the United Nations, which, ironically, Milei himself repeatedly labelled a leviathan and a failing, supranational government of international socialists bureaucrats, repeatedly calling for greater accountability.
Today, his government is relying on a shady UN ‘report’ to justify its rigging of what should have been a fair and competitive process.
Is Milei with President Trump or against him?
Is he a real capitalist or a CAPO (capitalist by name only)? Or is his not able to impose his visions on his own government?
All this could be a wake-up call for American Milei supporters when he knocks at their door for further support for the 2027 elections.
