In fact, Macri will meet today with the president of Guatemala Jimmy Morales to publicly formalize this sale of aircraft in the fifth of Olivos.

According to Infobae confirmed qualified sources of the Ministry of Defense and the Casa Rosada, the highlight of the government’s negotiations with South Korea for the purchase of the 10 aircraft FA-50 occurred last Friday in Japan, in the middle of the summit of the G20, where President Mauricio Macri spoke alone with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in in a respite from the meeting of heads of state and reviewed the bilateral relations between which is the purchase by Argentina of supersonic aircraft from South Korea.

“The intention of the government is to acquire two FA-50 aircraft this year and another eight next year, which will give air superiority to our defense,” said an exalted government official.

The South Korean planes will replace the scarce A-4AR fighter that the Air Force has and the financing of that operation will be 10 years with an extension for another two years. To face the USD 200 million that the operation will cost, a special extra budgetary budget will be allocated.

At the Embassy of South Korea in Argentina they told Infobae that for the moment “no comments will be made” on this information. In fact, the South Korean military attaché is in Chile at the moment and did not want to give details of the operation.

With the purchase of these airplanes, the government wants to go a step further in the military reform process initiated by Macri and Defense Minister Oscar Aguad. At the same time, the idea is to give a signal to the Air Force after the last acquisitions that had as protagonist the Army, which will receive 42 all-terrain control trucks for the northern border (used Humvee multipurpose 4 × 4, developed in the decade of the eighties by the United States), and the Navy, which will receive four PT Charly planes offered by the head of the US Southern Command Craig Faller in his recent visit to Argentina.

At the same time, as this media highlighted after President Jair Bolsonaro’s visit to Argentina, the Macri government agreed to acquire four used IKL submarines from the Brazilian Navy.

Military sources related to the Air Force explained that the FA-50 aircraft of South Korea are advanced training aircraft and supersonic. However, they are not combat aircraft and their maintenance could be very expensive.